Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T00:00:59.774Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Investigating lenition patterns in south-central Peninsular Spanish /spstsk/ clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2016

Nicholas Henriksen  and
Sarah K. Harper
Nicholas Henriksen
Affiliation:
University of [email protected]
Sarah K. Harper
Affiliation:
University of Southern [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this study we report on an instrumental analysis of /spstsk/ clusters in south-central Peninsular Spanish, documenting a three-way system of /s/ realization: speakers tend to produce alveolar fricatives in /st/ clusters, velar fricatives in /sk/ clusters, and glottal fricatives or deletions in /sp/ clusters. An analysis based on the discrete classification of /s/ variants shows that a combination of linguistic factors (following consonant and stress) influences /s/ realization. An analysis based on the phonetic coding of /s/ variants (using measures of fricative duration, relative voicing, and center of gravity) reveals the extent to which velar fricatives display an intermediate status along the phonetic continuum of /s/ lenition variations. Taken together, these analyses shed light on the nature of coda /s/ in Spanish and on the extent to which the attested allophony constitutes a lenition process.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Phonetic Association , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , December 2016 , pp. 287 - 310
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © International Phonetic Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alba, Orlando. 1982. Función del acento en el proceso de elisión de la /s/ en la República Dominicana. In Alba, Orlando (ed.), El español del Caribe, 15–26. Santiago de los Caballeros: Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra.Google Scholar
Alba, Orlando. 2003. ¿Cómo hablamos los dominicanos? Santo Domingo: Grupo León Jimenes.Google Scholar
Alvar, Manuel. 1996. Manual de dialectología hispánica, vol. 1: El Español de España. Barcelona: Ariel.Google Scholar
Bauer, Laurie. 2008. Lenition revisited. Journal of Linguistics 44, 605–624.Google Scholar
Beckman, Jill N. 1999. Positional faithfulness: An optimality theoretic treatment of phonological asymmetries. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David. 2015. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (version 5.4.06). http://www.praat.org/ (accessed 8 November 2015).Google Scholar
Bradley, Travis G. 2014. Sibilant place alternations in Romance. Presented at the 44th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, London, Ontario.Google Scholar
Browman, Catherine P. & Goldstein, Louis. 1989. Articulatory gestures as phonological units. Phonology 6, 201–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browman, Catherine P. & Goldstein, Louis. 1991. Gestural structures: Distinctiveness, phonological processes, and historical change. In Mattingly, Ignatius G. & Studdert-Kennedy, Michael (eds.), Modularity and the Motor Theory of Speech Perception, 313–338. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Browman, Catherine P. & Goldstein, Louis. 1992. Articulatory Phonology: An overview. Phonetica 49, 155–180.Google Scholar
Browman, Catherine P. & Goldstein, Louis. 1995. Dynamics and Articulatory Phonology. In Port, Robert F. & van Gelder, Timothy (eds.), Mind as motion: Dynamics, behavior, and cognition, 175–193. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Earl K. 2009. The relative importance of lexical frequency in syllable- and word-final /s/ reduction in Cali, Colombia. In Collentine, Joseph, García, Maryellen, Lafford, Barbara & Marcos Marín, Francisco (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 11th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, 165–178. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Calero Fernández, M. A. 1993. Estudio sociolingüístico del habla de Toledo: segmentos fonológicos -/s/- y -/j/-. Lleida: Pagès.Google Scholar
Carbonero Cano, P. 1982. El habla de Sevilla. Sevilla: Servicio de Publicaciones del Ayuntamiento.Google Scholar
Carvalho, Ana Maria. 2006. Spanish (s) aspiration as a prestige marker on the Uruguayan–Brazilian border. Spanish in Context 3, 85–114.Google Scholar
Catalán, Diego. 1989. El español: Orígenes de su diversidad. Madrid: Ediciones Paraninfo.Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta J. 1973. The interplay of social and linguistic variables. Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Díaz-Campos, Manuel & File-Muriel, Richard J.. 2004. The effect of phonetic factors in the perception of phonological variation: An experimental study of internal constraints of syllable-final /s/. Poster presented at Laboratory Phonology 9, Urbana–Champaign, IL.Google Scholar
Eager, Christopher. 2015. Automated voicing analysis in Praat: Statistically equivalent to manual segmentation. In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015 (ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVIII). Glasgow: The University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
Erker, Daniel G. 2010. A subsegmental approach to coda /s/ weakening in Dominican Spanish. The International Journal of the Sociology of Language 203, 9–26.Google Scholar
Erker, Daniel G. 2012. Of categories and continua: Relating discrete and gradient properties of sociophonetic variation. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 18, 11–20.Google Scholar
Fernández Sevilla, Julio. 1980. Los fonemas implosivos en español. Thesaurus: Boletín del Instituto Caro y Cuervo 33 (3), 456–505.Google Scholar
File-Muriel, Richard J. 2010. Lexical frequency as a scalar variable in explaining variation. The Canadian Journal of Linguistics/La Revue Canadienne de Linguistique 55, 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
File-Muriel, Richard J. & Brown, Earl K.. 2010. The gradient nature of s-lenition in Caleño Spanish. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 16 (2), 46–55.Google Scholar
File-Muriel, Richard J. & Brown, Earl K.. 2011. The gradient nature of s-lenition in Caleño Spanish. Language Variation and Change 23, 223–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer-Jørgensen, Eli. 1954. Acoustic analysis of stop consonants. In Lehiste, Ilse (ed.), Readings in acoustic phonetics, 137–154. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
de Weinberg, Fontanella, Beatriz, Maria. 1973. Comportamiento ante -s de hablantes femeninos y masculinos del español bonaerense. Romance Philology 27, 50–58.Google Scholar
Forrest, Karen, Weismer, Gary, Milenkovic, Paul & Dougall, Ronald N.. 1988. Statistical analysis of word-initial voiceless obstruents: Preliminary data. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 84, 115–123.Google Scholar
García Mouton, Pilar & Fernández, Francisco Moreno. 2003. Atlas lingüístico (y etnográfico) de Castilla-La Mancha. http://www2.uah.es/alecman/ (accessed 15 June 2015).Google Scholar
Gordon, Matthew, Barthmaier, Paul & Sands, Kathy. 2002. A cross-linguistic study of voiceless fricatives. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 32, 141–174.Google Scholar
Gradoville, Michael Stephen. 2011. Validity in measurements of fricative voicing: Evidence from Argentine Spanish. In Alvord, Scott M. (ed.), Selected proceedings of the 5th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology, 59–74. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Henriksen, Nicholas [C.]. 2012. The intonation and signaling of questions in Manchego Peninsular Spanish. Language and Speech 55, 543–576.Google Scholar
Henriksen, Nicholas. 2013. Style, prosodic variation, and the social meaning of intonation. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43, 153–193.Google Scholar
Henriksen, Nicholas. 2014a. Initial peaks and final falls in the intonation of Manchego Peninsular Spanish. Probus 26, 83–134.Google Scholar
Henriksen, Nicholas. 2014b. Sociophonetic analysis of phonemic trill variation in two sub-varieties of Peninsular Spanish. Journal of Linguistic Geography 2, 4–24.Google Scholar
Hernández-Campoy, Juan Manuel & Trudgill, Peter. 2002. Functional compensation and southern Peninsular Spanish /s/ loss. Folia Linguistica Historica 23 (1–2), 31–57.Google Scholar
Hoole, Phil. 1999. Laryngeal coarticulation. Section A: Coarticulatory investigations of the devoicing gesture. In Hardcastle, William J. & Hewlett, Nigel (eds.), Coarticulation: Theory, data and techniques, 260–269. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hualde, José Ignacio. 2005. The sounds of Spanish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hualde, José Ignacio & Prieto, Pilar. 2014. Lenition of intervocalic /s/ in Catalan and Spanish. Phonetica 71, 109–127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jongman, Allard, Wayland, Ratree & Wong, Serena. 2000. Acoustic characteristics of English fricatives. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 108, 1252–1263.Google Scholar
Kingston, John. 2008. Lenition. In Colantoni, Laura & Steele, Jeffrey (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology, 1–31. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Kirchner, Robert Martin. 1998. An effort-based approach to consonant lenition. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Kirchner, Robert Martin. 2004. Consonant lenition. In Hayes, Bruce, Kirchner, Robert & Steriade, Donca (eds.), Phonetically based phonology, 313–345. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klatt, Dennis H. & Stevens, Kenneth N.. 1969. Pharyngeal consonants. Research Laboratory of Electronics MIT Quarterly Progress Report 93, 207–216.Google Scholar
Lavoie, Lisa M. 2001. Consonant strength: Phonological patterns and phonetic manifestations. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Lipski, John M. 1984. On the weakening of /s/ in Latin American Spanish. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 51, 31–43.Google Scholar
Lipski, John M. 1994. Latin American Spanish. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Lipski, John M. 2012. Geographical and social varieties of Spanish: An overview. In Hualde, José Ignacio, Olarrea, Antxon & O'Rourke, Erin (eds.), The handbook of Hispanic linguistics, 1–26. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Maddieson, Ian. 1997. Phonetic universals. In Hardcastle, William J., Laver, John & Gibbon, Fiona E. (eds.), The handbook of phonetic sciences, 619–639. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mayer, Mercer. 1969. Frog, Where are you? New York: Dial Press.Google Scholar
Méndez Dosuna, J. 1985. La duración de S en los grupos SP, ST, SK: A propósito del orden regular de diffusion en algunos cambios fonéticos. In Luis, Michelena & Melena, José L. (eds.), Symbolae Ludovico Mitxelena Septuagenario Oblatae, 647–655. Vitoria, Spain: Universidad del País Vasco.Google Scholar
Momcilovic, Natasa B. 2009. A sociolinguistic analysis of s-aspiration in Madrid Spanish. München: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Moreno Fernández, Francisco. 1996. Castilla La Nueva. In Alvar, Manuel (ed.), Manual de dialectología hispánica: El español de España, 213–232. Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística.Google Scholar
Moya Corral, Juan Antonio 1979. La pronunciación del español en Jaén. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad de Granada.Google Scholar
Padgett, Jaye. 1994. Stricture and nasal place assimilation. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 12, 465–513.Google Scholar
Parrell, Benjamin. 2011. A dynamical account of how /b, d, g/ differ from /p, t, k/ in Spanish: Evidence from labials. Laboratory Phonology 2, 423–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parrell, Benjamin. 2012. The role of gestural phasing in Western Andalusian Spanish aspiration. Journal of Phonetics 40, 37–45.Google Scholar
Penny, Ralph. 2001. Variation and change in Spanish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana. 1979. Function and process in a variable phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Recasens, Daniel. 2002. Weakening and strengthening in Romance revisited. Rivista di Linguistica 14, 327–373.Google Scholar
Ruch, Hanna & Harrington, Jay. 2014. Synchronic and diachronic factors in the change from pre-aspiration to post-aspiration in Andalusian Spanish. Journal of Phonetics 45, 12–25.Google Scholar
Sánchez-Muñoz, Ana. 2004. Phonetic foundations of final /s/ patterning in South Central Castilian Spanish. In Chand, Vineeta, Kelleher, Ann, Rodríguez, Angelo J. & Schmeiser, Benjamin (eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 23), 690–702. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin, Kempff, Juergen & Ameal-Guerra, Ana. 2010. Fonética y fonología españolas, 4th edn. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Shadle, Christine Helen. 1985. The acoustics of fricative consonants. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Steriade, Donca. 1982. Greek prosodies and the nature of syllabification. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Stewart, Miranda. 1999. The Spanish language today. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Szigetvári, Péter. 2008. What and where? In de Carvalho, Joaquim Brandão, Scheer, Tobias & Philippe Ségéral (eds.), Lenition and fortition, 93–129. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terrell, Tracy D. 1981. Diachronic reconstruction by dialect comparison of variable constraints: S-aspiration and deletion in Spanish. In Sankoff, David (ed.), Variation omnibus, 115–124. Carbondale, IL: Linguistic Research.Google Scholar
Torreira, Fransisco. 2006. Coarticulation between aspirated-s and voiceless stops in Spanish: An interdialectal comparison. In Sagarra, Nuria & Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 9th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, 113–120. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Torreira, Fransisco. 2007. Pre- and postaspirated stops in Andalusian Spanish. In Prieto, Pilar, Mascaró, Joan & Solé, Maria-Josep (eds.), Segmental and prosodic issues in Romance phonology, 67–82. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Torreira, Fransisco. 2012. Investigating the nature of aspirated stops in Western Andalusian Spanish. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 42, 49–63.Google Scholar
Torreira, Fransisco & Ernestus, Mirjam. 2011. Realization of voiceless stops and vowels in conversational French and Spanish. Laboratory Phonology 2, 331–353.Google Scholar
Torreira, Fransisco & Ernestus, Mirjam. 2012. Weakening of intervocalic /s/ in the Nijmegen Corpus of Casual Spanish. Phonetica 69, 124–148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Villena-Ponsoda, Juan Andrés. 2008. Sociolinguistic patterns of Andalusian Spanish. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 193, 139–160.Google Scholar
Wright, Robyn. 2012. Ej que lo flipo tío. Presented at Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics 6, Tuscon, AZ.Google Scholar
Zsiga, Elizabeth C. 1993. Features, gestures, and the temporal aspects of phonological organization. Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. 1965. Topics in Sanskrit phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar