What does approximation sound like? A corpus-based study of the prosody of Italian "praticamente"

This study investigates how the semantic-evaluative property of approximation can be prosodically distinguished from other pragmatic and discursive functions of the same linguistic element, focusing on the Italian adverb "praticamente". Originally meaning 'in a practical way', "praticamente" has undergone a process of pragmaticalization and now serves a range of functions, including approximator, mitigator, discourse marker, filler, and reformulator. Drawing on the corpus RadioCast-It, we adopt a corpus-based approach to statistically explore whether specific prosodic features - such as pitch, articulation rate, and duration - are significantly associated with the use of "praticamente" as an approximator vs. discourse marker. The results, obtained through a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM), reveal a systematic association between the adverb’s function and its prosodic realization: the approximator use is characterized by a faster articulation rate and lower pitch, while the discourse marker use is associated with slower articulation, higher pitch, and frequent syllable-final vowel truncation. The study provides evidence that prosody plays a key role in marking approximation, contributing to the expression of evaluative stance in spoken Italian.