Statistical analysis of phonological properties of the Italian language
| Componente | Qualifica | Struttura | Categoria |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel | Principal Research Scientist | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA | Altro personale aggregato Sapienza o esterni, titolari di borse di studio di ricerca |
| Javier Arango | Research Partner | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA | Altro personale aggregato Sapienza o esterni, titolari di borse di studio di ricerca |
The purpose of this project is to derive a reliable estimate of the frequency of occurrence of the 30 phonemes, plus consonant geminated counterparts, of the Italian language, based on the transcription of written reference texts. Since no comparable dataset was found in previous literature, the present analysis may serve as a reference in future studies. Four textual sources will be considered: Come si fa una tesi di laurea by Umberto Eco, I promessi sposi by Alessandro Manzoni, a recent article in Corriere della Sera (a popular daily Italian newspaper), and In altre parole by Jhumpa Lahiri. The sources are chosen to represent varied genres, subject matter, time periods, and writing styles. Results of the analysis, which will also include an analysis of variance, will show, for all sources, the frequencies of occurrence, and will indicate the size of the corpus that is needed to reach relatively stable values for each single source and as an average across sources.