Mid Vowels and Schwa in Eastern Catalan
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Dylan Herrick
Abstract
For some speakers of urban (Barcelona) Catalan, the height distinction between mid vowels is disappearing and schwa is lowering to something close to a low central vowel (Recasens 1991). This paper provides quantitative acoustic data to illustrate i) that these changes are present in young (college age) speakers of urban Catalan, and ii) that these changes are independent of one another. The changes, however, appear to be limited to urban varieties of Catalan. Quantitative acoustic data based on both non-sense words and free speech tokens indicate that neither mid-vowel neutralization nor schwa-lowering are reflected in the speech of young, female, non-Barcelona speakers of Catalan. All speakers had at least some college education and came from the following areas: Bages (Central Catalan), Girona (Central Catalan), Ciutadella (Balearic Catalan), Palma (Balearic Catalan), and Lloseta (Balearic Catalan).
Abstract
For some speakers of urban (Barcelona) Catalan, the height distinction between mid vowels is disappearing and schwa is lowering to something close to a low central vowel (Recasens 1991). This paper provides quantitative acoustic data to illustrate i) that these changes are present in young (college age) speakers of urban Catalan, and ii) that these changes are independent of one another. The changes, however, appear to be limited to urban varieties of Catalan. Quantitative acoustic data based on both non-sense words and free speech tokens indicate that neither mid-vowel neutralization nor schwa-lowering are reflected in the speech of young, female, non-Barcelona speakers of Catalan. All speakers had at least some college education and came from the following areas: Bages (Central Catalan), Girona (Central Catalan), Ciutadella (Balearic Catalan), Palma (Balearic Catalan), and Lloseta (Balearic Catalan).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- An Acoustic Basis for Palatal Geminate Behavior in Spanish 1
- Mapping the Patterns of Maintenance versus Merger in Bilingual Phonology 15
- New Tendencies in Geographical Dialectology 31
- Output-to-output Correspondence and the Emergence of the Unmarked in Spanish Plural Formation 49
- Mapping French Pronunciation 65
- Phonological Variability in the Laboratory 83
- Constraint Re-ranking in Three Grammars 97
- Mid Vowels and Schwa in Eastern Catalan 113
- The Nominal Stress System of Romanian (re)revisited 127
- Proto-Romance Stress Shift Revisited 141
- Final -m in Yucatan Spanish 155
- Stressed Enclitics? 167
- How To Do Things Without Junk 183
- Subject Index 207
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- An Acoustic Basis for Palatal Geminate Behavior in Spanish 1
- Mapping the Patterns of Maintenance versus Merger in Bilingual Phonology 15
- New Tendencies in Geographical Dialectology 31
- Output-to-output Correspondence and the Emergence of the Unmarked in Spanish Plural Formation 49
- Mapping French Pronunciation 65
- Phonological Variability in the Laboratory 83
- Constraint Re-ranking in Three Grammars 97
- Mid Vowels and Schwa in Eastern Catalan 113
- The Nominal Stress System of Romanian (re)revisited 127
- Proto-Romance Stress Shift Revisited 141
- Final -m in Yucatan Spanish 155
- Stressed Enclitics? 167
- How To Do Things Without Junk 183
- Subject Index 207
