Volume 30, Issue 2

The paper demonstrates and evaluates the various approaches used in Spanish intonational research. Dialectal studies, theoretical and methodological approaches, and intonation representational schemata are reviewed in a chronological order and integrated with the main theoretical currents of the field. The authors suggest directions for future research and present a summary of their own investigations into two dialects of Spanish – Castilian and Mexican – using the computerized intonation extractor of the University of Toronto.

The variations requested about 14 vocal pairs confirm two privileged axes: one horizontal of gravity, the other vertical of aperture, with however on each of the axes an interference between both aspects. Besides these common points, to which belongs the perception of /o/ as the gravest vowel, the results obtained with Frenchmen differ from those of the foreigners in so far as the native speakers are revealed to have a more phonological than phonetic and a more proprioceptive than auditory perception. Likewise, we notice the emergence of two perceptive axes: an auditory acute/grave axe, which is rather linked to the volume of the cavity, and a proprioceptive ‘opening’/‘closure’ axe, which is linked to the joined factors of aperture and retraction as opposed to closure and labialization. The clearness of the vowel becomes a result of the acuity and of the perceptive ‘opening’, the darkness a result of the gravity and of the ‘closure’.