| Summary: | Due to its peculiar geopolitical layout, Ancona is connoted by a manifold linguistic profile – particularly for what concerns the consonantal system. However, this area has been so far scarcely investigated from a phonetic perspective. In this work, we propose the first acoustic description of selected consonants, as spoken in the local Italian variety: /p, t, k, s/. Literature unanimously reports that the local dialect is characterized by: a) the consonantal weakening of northern origin, which provokes voicing of /p, t, k, s/ in intervocalic position and degemination; b) the affrication of /s/ after /l, n, r/ – typical of other areas in central Italy. The aim is to verify whether these phenomena are attested also in the Italian variety spoken in Ancona. For this purpose, we conducted an acoustic analysis on spontaneous productions of 12 adult subjects (6 males and 6 females). While the sonorization of intervocalic /s/, which occurs in both northern and standard Italian pronunciations with all the well-known exceptions, is regular, the sonorization/lenition of voiceless plosives and degemination do not surface systematically. Presumably, these traits are perceived – more or less consciously – as socio-phonetic markers, thus mostly avoided in the pronunciation of Italian. At phonetic level, the dialectal interference is however statistically more pervasive in the male sample.
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