Perception of word-final inserted vowels and syllabicity in Italian

Perceptual evidence is provided in favour of the non-syllabicity of word-final vocalic elements in consonant-final nonce words in Italian. These are optionally present after words ending in consonants, and their syllabicity status is debatable. In the experiment, speakers listened to stimuli of nonce words presenting variable duration of word-final schwas and judged whether the stimuli were monosyllabic or disyllabic. The results strongly suggest that speakers of Veneto Italian do not phonologically distinguish between nonce words that present a word-final schwa and those that do not. In fact, stimuli were generally judged as monosyllabic. The results of the study support previous research stating that word-final schwas in Italian are non-syllabic, phonetic vowels.