Italian as a voice language without voice assimilation

Laryngeal Realism (LR) claims that Romance languages are voice languages, that is, they exhibit a two˗way voicing contrast and they have regressive voice assimilation. Empirical tests prove that those claims are only partially right for the case of Italian, which in fact presents [voice] opposition, but not assimilation. Since Italian phonotactics restrict the appearance of coda consonants, the laryngeal phonology of Italian is tested here through loanword adaptation and foreign accent analysis. This study attempts to demonstrate, through several phonetic examples and some related phonological arguments, that Italian is a true voice language which lacks Regressive Voice Assimilation (RVA).