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The intonational phonology of Peninsular Spanish and European Portuguese

  • Meghan E. Armstrong and Marisa Cruz
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Portuguese-Spanish Interfaces
This chapter is in the book Portuguese-Spanish Interfaces

Abstract

The study of Spanish and Portuguese intonation within the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) framework has developed substantially over the past 30 years, and recent applications of common methodology make comparative studies more feasible. Here we compare the intonational systems of Peninsular Spanish (PS) and European Portuguese (EP), considering previous research on prosodic hierarchy, phrasing and tonal density. Finally, we compare the two tonal inventories and their respective (ToBI) labeling conventions. We find a considerable amount of overlap in terms of phonetic implementations of the tonal categories, showing, at times, labeling differences. We use this comparative analysis (i) to discuss these labeling differences and (ii) to motivate the need for uniform but also transparent labeling conventions in order to account for variation across Ibero-Romance varieties and as the field moves forward, Romance varieties.

Abstract

The study of Spanish and Portuguese intonation within the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) framework has developed substantially over the past 30 years, and recent applications of common methodology make comparative studies more feasible. Here we compare the intonational systems of Peninsular Spanish (PS) and European Portuguese (EP), considering previous research on prosodic hierarchy, phrasing and tonal density. Finally, we compare the two tonal inventories and their respective (ToBI) labeling conventions. We find a considerable amount of overlap in terms of phonetic implementations of the tonal categories, showing, at times, labeling differences. We use this comparative analysis (i) to discuss these labeling differences and (ii) to motivate the need for uniform but also transparent labeling conventions in order to account for variation across Ibero-Romance varieties and as the field moves forward, Romance varieties.

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