Rhotic Variation and Contrast in Veracruz Mexican Spanish (original) (raw)
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2012. Phonetic and Phonological Variation in Spanish Syllable-initial Rhotics
Phonetic studies of Spanish rhotics report a wide range of allophonic variants of the syllable-initial trill /r/, which raises the question of whether the intervocalic contrast between /r/ and the tap /ɾ/ has been neutralized in many dialects. This study presents a spectrographic analysis of syllable-initial rhotics as produced by ten speakers of Veracruz Mexican Spanish in a guided, semi-spontaneous speech task. Trills that show a reduction in the degree of lingual trilling usually contain an approximant phase following one or two lingual contacts, which we represent as [ɾɹ] or [rɹ] in narrow transcription. Intervocalic taps show both reduction and elision, but those with a measurable contact are short enough to maintain an acoustic difference with the longer allophones of /r/. Taken with recent studies of rhotics in Dominican Spanish, these findings suggest that the contrast between /r/ and /ɾ/ can be maintained in terms of overall segmental duration even when there is no difference in the number of lingual contacts.
Phonetic and Phonological Variation in Spanish Syllable-initial Rhotics
En los estudios fonéticos de las consonantes róticas del español, se han comprobado muchas variantes alofónicas de la vibrante /r/ múltiple en posición inicial de sílaba, lo cual plantea la pregunta de si el contraste intervocálico entre la /r/ múltiple y la /ɾ/ simple se ha neutralizado en muchos dialectos. Este estudio presenta un análisis espectrográfico de las vibrantes iniciales de sílaba producidas por diez hablantes del español de Veracruz, México en una tarea guiada de habla semi-espontánea. Las vibrantes múltiples que muestran una reducción del grado de vibración de la lengua típicamente tienen una fase aproximante después de uno o dos contactos linguales, lo cual representamos como [ɾɹ] o [rɹ] en transcripción estrecha. Las vibrantes simples intervocálicas muestran reducción y elisión, pero las que tienen un contacto medible son lo suficientemente cortas como para mantener una diferencia acústica con los alófonos más largos de /r/. Tomados en conjunto con estudios reciente...
A phonetic analysis of intervocalic /r/ in Highland Bolivian Spanish
This paper provides a phonetic analysis of intervocalic /r/ in lower-class Highland Bolivian Spanish. Results show that in this dialect rhotic assibilation has progressed beyond the fricative [ř] already reported by several scholars (cf., to a voiced apical sibilant [z̺ ]. This article, in fact, offers the first spectrographic analysis of this segment. Findings are analyzed in light of a number of studies dealing with rhotic variability in Spanish. In particular, results are compared with those by Sessarego (2011), who provided an acoustic analysis of /r/ realizations for upper-middle-class Highland Bolivian Spanish speakers, without finding any instance of [z̺ ].
Limitations of the influence of English phonetics and phonology on L2 Spanish rhotics
Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 2016
This study investigates L2 Spanish rhotic production in intermediate learners of Spanish, specifically addressing the duration of the influence of L1 English rhotic articulations and a phonetic environment involving English taps on the acquisition of Spanish taps and trills that Olsen (2012) found. Results from multiple linear regressions involving thirty-five students in Spanish foreign language classes show that the effect of English rhotic articulations evident in beginners has disappeared after four semesters of Spanish study. However, results from paired samples t-tests show that these more advanced learners produced accurate taps significantly more in words containing phonetic environments that produce taps in English. This effect is taken as evidence that L1 phonetic influences have a shorter duration on L2 production than do L1 phonological influences. These results provide insights into L2 rhotic acquisition which Spanish educators and students can use to formulate reasonab...
Linguistic Advances in Central American Spanish, 2023
The present study investigates the Spanish voiced alveolar tap and trill with twenty four bilingual Spanish-Kaqchikel speakers from the greater region of Antigua, Guatemala. The objective was to document phonetic variation and how speakers maintain the phonological contrast when their other language only has one rhotic phoneme. 713 tokens of /ɾ/ and 276 tokens of /r/ in word-medial, intervocalic position were extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with these bilingual Guatemalan Spanish speakers, who were equally divided by biological sex and three age ranges. Tokens were categorized according to the variant present, their duration was measured, and the number of occlusions was counted (for /r/). Results show that while the canonical tap was the most common variant produced, the non-canonical trill variants were the most common for /r/. The multivariate analyses revealed that younger and middle-aged speakers favor the canonical variant for /ɾ/, while words with a rhotic minimal pair and younger and middle-aged speakers favor the canonical number of occlusions for the phonemic trill. Additionally, the duration of the phonemic trills was significantly longer than the phonemic tap, although some younger speakers had potential overlap in the duration of these segments. The results provide evidence for a change in progress in how the rhotic phonological contrast is being maintained this bilingual speech community.
Intervocalic rhotic pronunciation by adult learners of Spanish as a second language
Selected proceedings of the 7th conference on the …, 2006
The amount of work on the second language acquisition of Spanish phonology is relatively small in comparison to other areas of Spanish second language acquisition. Of the work on the second language acquisition of Spanish phonology, much focuses on the non-linguistic factors that influence pronunciation as a whole (i.e., without focusing on particular sounds or features in that pronunciation; e.g.Work that has focused on the acquisition of specific Spanish sounds has shared a couple of characteristics. First, studies have tended to cluster around certain types of sounds and issues. Certainly the most studied sounds are the voiceless stops (e.g.where much attention has been paid to the fact that the same phonological stops, /p,t,k/, exist in both Spanish and English, but with the considerable phonetic difference that voice onset times are much shorter in Spanish than in English. Another characteristic of studies that have focused on the second language acquisition of particular Spanish sounds is that often there is a focus on how non-linguistic factors (e.g., context of learning, field dependence/independence, age, attitude) lead to improvement in the pronunciation of particular sounds (e.g.third characteristic of studies on the acquisition of particular Spanish sounds is that many studies tend to consider accuracy in achieving the target sound, and in some cases improvement in accuracy, but not the development of pronunciation en route to consistent accuracy. That is, even those studies that examine improvement in the pronunciation of particular Spanish sounds often consider only the increase in accuracy in achieving the target over time without considering the changes in error types and what such development might tell us about the acquisition process.
Men Finally Got It! Rhotic Assibilation in Mexican Spanish in Chihuahua
Languages, 2020
Rhotic assibilation is a common sociolinguistic variable observed in different Spanish speaking countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, and México. Previous studies reported that rhotic assibilation alternates with the flap and/or with the trill. In this study, we explore three aspects of rhotic assibilation in the Spanish of the state of Chihuahua, Mexico/El Paso, TX, United States: (1) Its diachronic development; (2) the linguistic and social factors that affect this variation and; (3) the possible effect of contact with English in this variable. Fifty-eight participants, including Spanish monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual subjects, performed one formal and two semi-informal speech production tasks. Acoustic and perceptual analysis of the tokens showed that the variation is not binary (standard vs. non-standard variant), but that it includes other rhotic variants with varying degrees of frication. Variation is restricted to phrase-final position and heavily favored by preceding front vowels (/e/ and /i/). These effects have a clear aerodynamic and articulatory motivation. Rhotic assibilation is not receding, as previously reported. It continues to be a prestigious variable prevalent amongst females, but also present in male speakers. The comparison between bilingual and monolingual speakers shows that contact with English does not significantly affect the occurrence of assibilation.