Isabelle Bracamonte wrote :
<< All right... Moriarty says that "e" and "o" preceding
a stressed syllable is closed, and "e" and "o"
following a stressed syllable is open. Stressed "e"
and "o" are variable -- you have to look them up.>>
It's a pity that with such a name, you cannot help us in correct Italian
diction! ;-)
I find your first sentence odd. I thought that un-stressed "o" and "e" were
always closed. Still another rule?
The problem is that there cannot be two adjacent stressed syllables in a
word! (Or am I wrong?)
Therefore, I would have thought that <"e" and "o" preceding/following a
stressed syllable> would be unstressed, hence closed...
<<[Question 1: But where? I've seen oodles of dictionaries that contradict
each other... is the Zingarelli the standard?]>>
Zingarelli is from Tuscany, isn't it? I haven't my Italian documentation at
hand, but I think there is a sort of competition between a Tuscan
pronunciation, which would be a sort of "received", slightly old-fashioned
pronunciation, and a more recent "standard" Italian, which would be closer
to the language spoken on TV, that is without regionalisms, but without the
particularisms from Tuscany either. Considered from a French point of view,
this second "standard Italian" seems often more logical than the Tuscan
version. In France, older or more traditional coaches seem to favour the
Tuscan pronunciation, while the more casual or modern coach would favour the
"standard" Italian.
BTW, this competition can be listened to in the duetto from L'Italiana as
sung by Bartoli and Terfel: while one of them (probably Terfel, I don't
remember) sings "risolvere" as [z] (standard Italian), the other one sings
it as [s] (Tuscan Italian)!
At first, I thought it crazy that they did not agree about ONE
pronunciation, but then I thought that it sounded more spontaneous this way,
as if Taddeo and Isabella had different origins and backgrounds - Isabella
could have received a more formal education etc.
| Alain Zürcher, Paris, France
| L'Atelier du Chanteur :
| http://chanteur.net
|
