Italian phonology

The phonology of Italian describes the sound system—the phonology and phonetics—of Standard Italian and its geographical variants.

Notes:

In Italian there is no phonemic distinction between long and short vowels, but vowels in stressed open syllables, unless word-final, are long. Adjacent identical vowels found at morpheme boundaries are not resyllabified, but pronounced separately ("quickly rearticulated"), and they might be reduced to a single short vowel in rapid speech.

Although Italian contrasts close-mid (/e, o/) and open-mid (/ɛ, ɔ/) vowels in stressed syllables, this distinction is neutralised in unstressed position, where only the close-mid vowels occur. The height of these vowels in unstressed position is context-sensitive; they are somewhat lowered ([e̞, o̞]) in the vicinity of more open vowels. The distinction between close-mid and open-mid vowels is lost entirely in a few Southern varieties, especially in the Northern Sicilian dialect (Palermo), where they are realized as open-mid [ɛ, ɔ], as well as in some Northern varieties (in particular in Piedmont), where they are realized as mid [e̞, o̞].

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