A unified account of consonant gemination in external sandhi in Italian: Raddoppiamento Sintattico and related phenomena

Abstract

This study proposes a unified account of consonant gemination in external sandhi in Italian, also known as Raddoppiamento phenomena. As opposed to the common interpretation of Raddoppiamento as being driven by well-formedness conditions on Italian rhymes, it argues that gemination in sandhi ought to be analysed as a fortition process driven by positional factors. Not only does this account unify all of the Italian Raddoppiamento phenomena (backwards Raddoppiamento, synchronic and idiosyncratic Raddoppiamento Sintattico) but it provides a picture of the phenomena that is consistent from a theoretical, diachronic, geographic, cross-linguistic and synchronic point of view.