Acoustic and kinematic correlates of phonological length contrast in italian consonants

In Italian, length contrast is exploited in the consonant system. Previous articulatory studies have focused on the temporal organization of gestures in Italian geminates and on the lower lip kinematics of the singleton/geminate distinction. In this paper, data on lip and tongue gestures are discussed in order to directly test hypotheses on the gestural organization of geminate consonants and to collect observations on the possible position of gestural targets in geminate and singleton consonants. The results show that Italian geminates appear to be best accounted for by a hybrid model that makes use of both Öhman's Vowel-to-Vowel model and Browman and Goldstein's Vowel-and-Consonant model. Moreover, our data partly confirm the existence of a higher virtual target in geminates than in singletons