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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Pizza: Spelled Exactly That Way in How Many Languages?
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References: <56o1c7$b0o@sjx-ixn8.ix.netcom.com> <E137po.20C@midway.uchicago.edu> <56saf0$g82@news.fth.sbs.de> <3293B5F6.3E68@msmlab.byu.edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 06:58:34 GMT
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In article <3293B5F6.3E68@msmlab.byu.edu>,
Mike Felix  <mikef@msmlab.byu.edu> wrote:
>> And, of course, as all Italian words containing a double consonant, both
>> f's in "caffe'" (apostroph is in place of the grave accent) must be
>> pronounced: caf-fe'. The same for z's in pizza: piz-za.
>> 
>True, but as a side thought: I think I've heard it said that even a
>single Italian z is pronounced as a double, because the sound is
>inherently double (/ts/).  

	That depends on who you talk to, since many linguists treat
affricates as single phonemes and transcribe them accordingly, IPA be
damned (e.g /picca/ for <pizza>).  What does this respresent phonetically?
[pit:sa], as I understand it; that is, the fricative release remains
unaffected but the stop closure is lengthened (cf. <pittore> [pi't:ore]
"painter").  However, my phonetics is weak so I invite correction on this
point.

>I also heard that the 'gn' is the same way,
>as well as the 'sc'.  Am I right?

	Here I think you are being misled by the script.  Although written
with two letters, <gn> and <sc> [before <i,e>] each represent a single
sound, i.e. [N] (or however one represents a palatal nasal in IPA4ASCII)
and [S], respectively.  Theoretically, these could be doubled, just like
their aveolar counterparts [n] and [s] (cf. 'pene' vs. 'penne', 'casa' vs.
'cassa'), but I don't think [N:] and [S:] ever occur in Standard Italian.
Again, I'm quite amenable to correction on this point.
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
