Startseite Linguistik & Semiotik On the Gradient Lenition of Spanish Voiced Obstruents: A Look at Onset Clusters
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

On the Gradient Lenition of Spanish Voiced Obstruents: A Look at Onset Clusters

  • Katerina A. Tetzloff ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 7. August 2020

Abstract

Spanish voiced obstruents are traditionally described as having a stop allophone [b, d, g] and a lenited allophone [β, ð, ɣ]. Despite this binary classification, acoustic data has shown that this variation is continuous or gradient depending on the preceding linguistic context. The goal of this paper is to investigate how the following linguistic context affects the degree of Spanish voiced obstruent lenition. Specifically, this paper reports an acoustic investigation of Spanish voiced obstruent lenition in onset cluster contexts. Nine native Spanish speakers were recorded reading Spanish-like nonce words that included a singleton voiced obstruent or an onset cluster consisting of a voiced obstruent plus [ɾ] or [l]. The relative intensity and the duration of these segments were measured and compared with linear mixed-effects regressions. In line with past work, the results show that the voiced obstruents are the most lenited in intervocalic contexts. However, Spanish voiced obstruents are significantly less lenited when followed by [ɾ] in a complex onset; when followed by [l] in a complex onset, the degree of lenition is much more variable. These results provide further support for the gradient lenition of Spanish voiced obstruents, rather than a dichotomous distribution of stops versus lenited variants.


Corresponding author: Katerina A. Tetzloff, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA, E-mail:

Funding source: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Award Identifier / Grant number: 2017240584

Appendix A

Target nonce words phonemic transcriptions:

Singleton onsets

paba

gebo

niba

bobe

xuba

pado

tedo

xida

goda

muda

tago

pega

miga

doge

nuga

C+[ɾ] onsets

nabra

gebro

nibra

dobre

xubra

tadro

kedro

nidra

sodre

xudra

kagre

kegra

sigro

dogre

mugra

C+[l] onsets

kablo

deblo

nibla

moble

nubla

taglo

teglo

xigla

sogle

xulga

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank John Kingston and Kristine Yu for their invaluable feedback and discussion regarding this work.

References

Amastae, Jon. 1989. The intersection of s-aspiration/deletion and spirantization in Honduran Spanish. Language Variation and Change 1. 169–183. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954394500000053.Suche in Google Scholar

Amastae, Jon. 1995. Variable spirantization: Constraint weighting in three dialects. Hispanic Linguistics 6. 267–286.Suche in Google Scholar

Baković, Eric. 1994. Strong onsets and Spanish fortition. In Proceedings of the 6th Annual Student Conference in Linguistics (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 23), 21–39. Cambridge: MIT.Suche in Google Scholar

Barlow, Jessica A. 2003. The stop-spirant alternation in Spanish: Converging evidence for a fortition account. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 22. 51–86.Suche in Google Scholar

Bates, Douglas, Martin Mächler, Ben Bolker & Steve Walker. 2014. Fitting linear mixed effects models using lme4. preprint arXiv:1406.5823.10.18637/jss.v067.i01Suche in Google Scholar

Boersma, Paul & David Weenin. 2019. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.51.Suche in Google Scholar

Bybee, Joan L. 2007. Frequency of use and the organization of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195301571.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Bybee, Joan L. & Paul J. Hopper. 2001. Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.10.1075/tsl.45Suche in Google Scholar

Canavan, Alexandra & George Zipplerlen. 1996. CallFriend Spanish non-Caribbean dialect. Philadelphia, PA: Linguistic Data Consortium.Suche in Google Scholar

Canfield, D. Lincoln. 1981. Spanish pronunciation in the Americas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Carrasco, Patricio G. 2008. An acoustic study of voiced stop allophony in Costa Rican Spanish. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign dissertation.Suche in Google Scholar

Carrasco, Patricio G., José I. Hualde & Miquel Simonet. 2012. Dialectal differences in Spanish voiced obstruent allophony: Costa Rican versus Iberian Spanish. Phonetica 69. 149–179. https://doi.org/10.1159/000345199.Suche in Google Scholar

Carreira, Maria M. 1998. A constraint-based approach to Spanish spirantization. Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science Series 4. 143–158. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.157.08car.Suche in Google Scholar

Clements, George N. 1990. The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabification. Papers in Laboratory Phonology 1. 283–333. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511627736.017.Suche in Google Scholar

Colantoni, Laura & Irina Marinescu. 2010. The scope of stop weakening in Argentine Spanish. In Marta Ortega-Llebaria (ed.), Selected proceedings of the 4th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology, 100–114. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Suche in Google Scholar

Cole, Jennifer, José I. Hualde & Khalil Iskarous. 1999. Effects of prosodic and segmental context on /g/-lenition in Spanish. In Osamu Fujimura, Brian D. Joseph & Bohumil Palek (eds), Proceedings of the Fourth International Linguistics and Phonetics Conference, Vol. 2, 575–589. Prague: The Karolinum Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Eddington, David. 2011. What are the contextual phonetic variants of in colloquial Spanish? Probus 23. 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1515/prbs.2011.001.Suche in Google Scholar

Figueroa, Mauricio & Brownen G. Evans. 2014. Cue weighting of acoustic variables in the perception of Chilean Spanish approximant consonants. In Paper presented at Meeting of the British Association of Academic Phoneticians, University of Oxford, 7–9.Suche in Google Scholar

González, Carolina. 2002. Phonetic variation in voiced obstruents in North-Central Peninsular Spanish. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 32. 17–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025100302000129.Suche in Google Scholar

Hammond, Robert. 1999. On the non-occurrence of the phone [r] in the Spanish sound system. In Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach & Fernando Martínez-Gil (eds.), Advances in Hispanic linguistics, 135–151. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.Suche in Google Scholar

Harris, James W. 1967. Spanish phonology. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology dissertation.Suche in Google Scholar

Harris, James W. 1983. Syllable structure and stress in Spanish: A nonlinear analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Harris, James W. 1984. La espirantización en castellano y la representación fonológica autosegmental. Working Papers in Linguistics 1. 149–167.Suche in Google Scholar

Harris, James. 1987. Epenthesis processes in Spanish. In Carol Neidle & Rafael Niifiez-Cedefio (eds.), Studies in Romance languages, 107–122. Dordrecht: Foris.10.1515/9783110846300.107Suche in Google Scholar

Hualde, José I., Miquel Simonet & Marianna Nadeu. 2011. Consonant lenition and phonological recategorization. Laboratory Phonology 2. 301–329. https://doi.org/10.1515/labphon.2011.011.Suche in Google Scholar

Keating, Patricia A. 1983. Comments on the jaw and syllable structure. Journal of Phonetics 11. 401–406. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0095-4470(19)30839-3.Suche in Google Scholar

Kingston, John. 2008. Lenition. In Laura Colantoni & Jeffrey Steele (eds.), 3rd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology, 1–31. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Suche in Google Scholar

Kirchner, Robert. 2004. Consonant lenition. In Robert Kirchner, Donca Steriade & Bruce Hayes (eds.), Phonetically based phonology, 313–345. Cambridge: CUP.10.1017/CBO9780511486401.010Suche in Google Scholar

Kirchner, Robert. 2013. An effort based approach to consonant lenition. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles dissertation.10.4324/9781315023731Suche in Google Scholar

Ladefoged, Peter. 1993. A course in phonetics. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.Suche in Google Scholar

Lavoie, Lisa M. 2001. Consonant strength: Phonological patterns and phonetic manifestations. London: Routledge Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics.10.4324/9780203826423Suche in Google Scholar

Lewis, Anthony M. 2000. Acoustic variability of intervocalic voiceless stop consonants in three Spanish dialects. In Héctor Campos, Elena Herburger, Alfonso Morales-Front & Thomas J. Walsh (eds.), Hispanic Linguistics at the Turn of the Millennium: Papers from the 3rd Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, 101–114. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Lewis, Anthony M. 2004. Coarticulatory effects on Spanish trill production. In Augustine Agwuele, Willis Warren & Sang-Hoon Park (eds.), Proceedings of the 2003 Texas Linguistics Society Conference, 116–127. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Suche in Google Scholar

Lezama, Carlos Gelormini. 2017. Language games, aspiration and syllabification in Argentine Spanish. Revista Virtual de Estudios da Linguagem-Revel 15. 338–353.Suche in Google Scholar

Lipski, John. 1994. Spanish stops, spirants and glides: From consonantal to [vocalic]. In Michael L. Mazzola (ed.), Issues and theory in Romance languages, 67–86. Wahingtoon, DC: Georgetown University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Liu, Sharlene A. 1996. Landmark detection for distinctive feature-based speech recognition. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 100. 3417–3430. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.416983.Suche in Google Scholar

Long, Avizia Yim & Lisa Baldwin. 2013. A sociolinguistic analysis of intervocalic /b/ in Caracas speech. IULC Working Papers 13(1). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/iulcwp/article/view/26093/31751.Suche in Google Scholar

MacLeod, Bethany. 2008. The hierarchy of velar weakening in Buenos Aires Spanish. In Paper presented at the Canadian Linguistics Conference at the University of British Columbia.Suche in Google Scholar

Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio. 2013. Caracterización acústica de las aproximantes espirantes en español. Estudios de fonética experimental 22. 11–36.Suche in Google Scholar

Navarro-Tomás, Tomás. 1991. Manual de pronunciación española. Madrid: CSIC.Suche in Google Scholar

Ortega-Llebaria, Marta. 2006. Phonetic cues to stress and accent in Spanish. In Manuel Díaz-Campos (ed.), Selected Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonetics and Phonology, 104–118. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Suche in Google Scholar

Parker, Stephen. 2002. Quantifying the sonority hierarchy. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts at Amherst dissertation.Suche in Google Scholar

Parker, Stephen. 2008. Sound level protrusions as physical correlates of sonority. Journal of Phonetics 36. 55–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2007.09.003.Suche in Google Scholar

Pierrehumbert, Janet B. 2001. Exemplar dynamics: Word frequency, lenition and contrast. Typological studies in language 45. 137–158. https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.45.08pie.Suche in Google Scholar

Pierrehumbert, Janet B. 2002. Word-specific phonetics. Laboratory Phonology 7, 101–1397. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110197105.1.101Suche in Google Scholar

Piñeros, Carlos-Eduardo. 2002. Markedness and laziness in Spanish obstruents. Lingua 112. 379– 413. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0024-3841(01)00048-1.Suche in Google Scholar

Price, Patti Jo. 1980. Sonority and syllabicity: Acoustic correlates of perception. Phonetica 37. 327–343. https://doi.org/10.1159/000260001.Suche in Google Scholar

Quilis, Antonio. 1981. Fonética acústica de la lengua española. Madrid: Gredos.Suche in Google Scholar

R Core Team and others. 2013. R: A language and environment for statistical computing.Suche in Google Scholar

Rogers, Brandon. 2016. The influence of linguistic and social variables in the spirantization of intervocalic/b, d, g/in Concepción, Chile. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 9. 207–237. https://doi.org/10.1515/shll-2016-0008.Suche in Google Scholar

Romero-Gallego, Joaquin. 1995. Gestural organization in Spanish: An experimental study of spirantization and aspiration. Mansfield: University of Connecticut dissertation.Suche in Google Scholar

RStudio Team. 2015. Rstudio: Integrated development environment for R. Boston, MA: RStudio, Inc. https://www.rstudio.com/.Suche in Google Scholar

Selkirk, Elisabeth O. 1984. On the major class features and syllable theory. In Mark Aronoff & Richard T. Oehrle (eds.), Language sound structure: Studies in phonology presented to Morris Halle by his teacher and students, 107–136. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Simonet, Miquel, José I. Hualde & Marianna Nadeu. 2012. Lenition of /d/ in spontaneous Spanish and Catalan. In Thirteenth Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, 1414–1417. Baixas, France: International Speech Communications Association.10.21437/Interspeech.2012-50Suche in Google Scholar

Soler, Antonia & Joaquín, Romero. 1999. The role of duration in stop lenition in Spanish. In John J. Ohala, Yoko Hasegawa, Manjari Ohala, Daniel Granville & Ashlee C. Bailey (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 483–486. Oakland, CA: The Regents of the University of California.Suche in Google Scholar

Szigetvári, Péter. 1999. VC phonology: A theory of consonant lenition and phonotactics. Budapest, Hungary: Eötvös Loránd University dissertation.Suche in Google Scholar

Wireback, Kenneth J. 1997. The role of phonological structure in sound change from Latin to Spanish and Portuguese. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.Suche in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2020-08-07
Published in Print: 2020-10-25

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 6.12.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/shll-2020-2036/html
Button zum nach oben scrollen