Fiorentino e la sua città

[Itikar]

I was referring to the distinction between ungeminated intervocalic s's of normative literary Italian, i.e. the pronunciation of Italian presented in that dictionary that we had suggested to you.

In my spontaneous pronunciation, for instance, I have the following minimal couples:
a)chiese /'kjɛse/ (he asked) vs. chiese /'kjɛze/ (churches)
b)casa /'kasa/ (house) vs. cassa /'kassa/ (box, chest)

Most Italians nowadays pronounce 'chiese' (both words) and 'casa' with /z/.

[Koko]

And the general /s/ remains /s/ in compounds like "presente" is true with your speech?

Are your s's affected like z? Voiced in voiced environments and voiceless in voiceless environments? Or just usually arbitrary?

[Itikar]

And the general /s/ remains /s/ in compounds like "presente" is true with your speech?

Of course.
presente /pre'sɛnte/ (he forebodes)
presente /pre'zɛnte/ (present)
But I think that the distinction in compounds has a much wider user base.

Are your s's affected like z? Voiced in voiced environments and voiceless in voiceless environments? Or just usually arbitrary?

What do you mean? Would you mind giving me an example?
If you mean that 'disposto' is /di'sposto/ and 'disbosco' is /di'zbɔsco/, then yes.

[Koko]

Well, judging from caso and francese being voiced opposing naso and inglese being voiceless, perhaps it's instead voiced in voiceless environments and voiceless in voiced environments.

I mean that if the word has voiceless consonants the s is /z/, and /s/ in words of voiced consonants. This could also just be me finding patterns that are simply coincidental .

[Itikar]

Well, judging from caso and francese being voiced opposing naso and inglese being voiceless, perhaps it's instead voiced in voiceless environments and voiceless in voiced environments.

I mean that if the word has voiceless consonants the s is /z/, and /s/ in words of voiced consonants. This could also just be me finding patterns that are simply coincidental .

No, if the s is between two vowels the other consonants of the word are completely irrelevant.

What is relevant is that there are some patterns and rules to predict how it sounds.
For example: the ending -ese in adjectives like 'inglese' or 'cinese' is always unvoiced. However, as I have shown to you, there is a handful exceptions to this rule, such as 'francese' but also 'palese' or 'cortese', that must be learned by heart.

[OldBoring]

IIRC, words like "francese", "cortese", "borghese" are pronounced with voiced /z/ because they come from French.
There's also a general rule that popular words have unvoiced /s/ and learnèd words have voiced /z/; but then it's not easy to find out which words are popular, which learnèd.

What you say about "voiced/unvoiced enviroment" happens with the initial <z> in some cases.
So "zucchero", "zuppa" with unvoiced /ts/ because the consonant in the following syllable is unvoiced.
"Zona", "zigomo" with voiced /dz/ because the next consonant is voiced.
But I'm sure there are many exceptions.

[Koko]

Thanks for that Itikar. ^^

And Youngfun, I compared the s to z in my last post, but thanks to you as well.

[Koko]

Ipse, se pronunciassi /s/ come /ts/ dopo di /n/ sembrerebbe che vi canzoni? L'ho sempre pronunciato in questo modo: grazie all'inglese, è un'abitudine.

[IpseDixit]

L'ho sempre pronunciato in questo modo: grazie all'inglese, è un'abitudine.

Il punto di imparare un'altra lingua non è proprio quello di cercare di superare le proprie abitudini?

[TeneReef]

The funniest pronunciation is qualsiasi [kwalziazi], as heard in Nek's songs.

[IpseDixit]

The funniest pronunciation is qualsiasi [kwalziazi], as heard in Nek's songs.

Which one of his songs?

[OldBoring]

Ipse, se pronunciassi /s/ come /ts/ dopo di /n/ sembrerebbe che vi canzoni?

Se ricordo bene, /nts/ è tipico del Sud della Toscana (es. Pisa, Livorno, Siena... ma non a Firenze) e in molte zone del centro-sud d'Italia.

[IpseDixit]

Ipse, se pronunciassi /s/ come /ts/ dopo di /n/ sembrerebbe che vi canzoni?

Se ricordo bene, /nts/ è tipico del Sud della Toscana (es. Pisa, Livorno, Siena... ma non a Firenze) e in molte zone del centro-sud d'Italia.

Ah, non sapevo fosse una cosa vera, infatti mi stavo domandando che cavolo stesse farneticando koko , io non ho mai fatto caso a questa cosa...

@koko, impara l'italiano standard.

[Koko]

I can't not affricate the /s/ after n though! It's way too difficult for me to stop doing.

[IpseDixit]

I can't not affricate the /s/ after n though! It's way too difficult for me to stop doing.

Don't worry too much if you can't do that right now. It's quite a normal thing that when you are in the process of learning a foreign language you'll have to face phonemes that seem impossible to pronounce. The trick is to be patient, keep practicing and don't lose heart.

[TeneReef]

The funniest pronunciation is qualsiasi [kwalziazi], as heard in Nek's songs.

Which one of his songs?

'Se vuoi, se puoi'

[Koko]

Ipse, coniare il termine "un doppio-doppio" quando trasferirmi a Firenze poi usarlo in un singolare caffè (dopo spiegarlo, certo. Significa «a double-double»), potrei farlo?

Non ho proprio sbagliato qui? Questo paragrafo è stato unico che ricordo d'avere paura.

Ed anche, Ipse, suppongo di provare.