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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1206

Part of Session 167: Fine phonetic detail and sociolinguistic ethnography (Other abstracts in this session)

/s/-aspiration and sound change in two varieties of Andalusian Spanish

Authors: Ruch, Hanna
Submitted by: Ruch, Hanna (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany)

This paper is concerned with variation and change in the pronunciation of syllable final /s/ in Andalusian Spanish, where this sound is usually weakened to [h] or even deleted (pasta ‘paste/pasta’ [ˈpahta] vs. pata ‘paw’ [ˈpata]). For /sp, st, sk/ in Andalusian Spanish there is some evidence for variety-dependent variation: the East Andalusian (i.e. Granada) variety seems to realize the /C/-/sC/ contrast by pre-aspiration [hp, ht, hk] and the C/V-ratio (Gerfen, 2002), the Western (i.e. Seville) variety shows, in addition to closure lengthening, a preference for post-aspiration [p^h, t^h, k^h] (Torreira, in press; Parrell, 2012), especially among younger speakers (pilot research). The question of a sound change in progress from pre- to post-aspiration ([ˈpahta] ⟶ [ˈpaht^ha] ⟶  [ˈpat^ha]) has not yet been addressed systematically.

Our study addresses this issue from a sociophonetic perspective, comparing Spanish from Seville (i.e. capital of Andalusia) and Granada (i.e. major town of Eastern Andalusia). Following the apparent-time method we tested whether young and older speakers of both varieties had different strategies to contrast /t/ vs. /st/ in production. We hypothesized that young speakers of Seville Spanish would use primarily post-aspiration as an acoustic cue of /st/, while the other speaker groups would use other cues such as pre-aspiration or the C/V-ratio.

We analysed five trisyllabic words with medial /st/ (e.g. /pesˈtaɲa/ 'eyelash') and two comparable /t/-words (e.g. /eˈtapa/ ‘leg, stage’) from 48 speakers; 24 from Seville, 24 from Granada, each divided into two age groups. The dependent variables included the difference of post-aspiration (i.e. VOT) and of C/V-ratio between /st/ and /t/, and occurrence of pre-aspiration in the /st/-words. An ANOVA showed that post-aspiration-difference was significantly larger among younger speakers not only in Seville (p < 0.001), but also in Granada (p < 0.05), and younger speakers produced less pre-aspirated tokens, although this difference was significant only for Seville (p < 0.001). The C/V-ratio was more important for older speakers in both varieties (p < 0.05). Furthermore, among the younger speakers, women showed a larger VOT-difference than men (p <  0.05).

Our results show different stages of an on-going sound change from pre- to post-aspiration, which seems to be leaded by women. Furthermore, our findings indicate how the realization of the same phonological contrast varies according to social variables. The question remains if the emerging post-aspiration in Granada is contact-induced or if it is the result of an independent articulatory or perceptual based process. A perception experiment is planned to investigate which social variables listeners associate with the innovative phonetic variants, what may shed light on the issue of whether these fine phonetic details may carry social meanings (Foulkes et. al, 2010).

References:

Foulkes, P; Scobbie, J. & Watt, D. 2010: Sociophonetics. In: Hardcastle, W; Laver, J. & Gibbon, F. (eds.): The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences. Oxford: Blackwell, 703-754. 

Gerfen, C. 2002. Andalusian Codas. Probus 14, 247-277.

Parrell, B. 2012. The role of gestural phasing in Western Andalusian Spanish Aspiration. Journal of Phonetics 40, 37-45.

Torreira, F. in press. Investigating the nature of aspirated stops in Western Andalusian Spanish. To appear in Journal of the IPA.