Prosodic analysis: An Italian case study

This study starts from the need to enhance the scientific knowledge on prosody features that characterise the human communication and in particular on the importance they have to attribute meaning to sentences. Starting from these considerations the focus of the paper is to distinguish the role that prosodic features have in distinguishing four different kinds of Italian sentences (statements, questions, exclamations and commands). The methodology used for the analysis is the case study. To perform the study 50 Italian users of the Institute of Research on Population and Social Policies (IRPPS) of the National Research Council of Rome have been involved. Results of the case study showed different associations between sentence types and tones types both for tonic and pre-tonic parts of the sentences.