XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de   
      
   Kees van den Doel  wrote or quoted:   
   >Suppose you sing "pala" on 2 quarter notes, say a B and a C, then in the   
   >same tempo sing  "palla": you'll see that the 'a' in  the second word is   
   >shorter and the first  'l' pushes the 'a' out of way  so to speak if you   
   >know what I mean which I doubt since you're Italian.   
      
     There are sometimes extra rules for singing, so let's just stick   
     to speaking.   
      
     In Italian, when a consonant doubles, it basically gets longer.   
     Textbooks actually cover that part.   
      
     But the effect that doubling a consonant has on how long the vowel   
     before it is - that's a trickier thing. You don't usually see that   
     explained in textbooks; it's more of a research topic at this point.   
      
     The idea that a vowel before a long or double consonant tends   
     to be shorter than a vowel before a short consonant isn't really   
     consistent. It depends on a bunch of factors, like what kind of   
     consonant it is or the word and stress pattern it shows up in.   
      
   |The tendency for a V preceding a long or geminate C to be   
   |shorter than a corresponding V preceding a short C is   
   |strongly non-systematic and influenced by different variables   
   |(such as the type of the C, the lexical/prosodic context etc.).   
   "The acquisition of Italian L2 phonology: consonant gemination"   
   (2010-02) - Chiara Celata, Lidia Costamagna   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)