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Investigating lenition patterns in south-central Peninsular Spanish /spstsk/ clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2016

Nicholas Henriksen
Affiliation:
University of Michigannhenriks@umich.edu
Sarah K. Harper
Affiliation:
University of Southern Californiaskharper@usc.edu

Abstract

In this study we report on an instrumental analysis of /spstsk/ clusters in south-central Peninsular Spanish, documenting a three-way system of /s/ realization: speakers tend to produce alveolar fricatives in /st/ clusters, velar fricatives in /sk/ clusters, and glottal fricatives or deletions in /sp/ clusters. An analysis based on the discrete classification of /s/ variants shows that a combination of linguistic factors (following consonant and stress) influences /s/ realization. An analysis based on the phonetic coding of /s/ variants (using measures of fricative duration, relative voicing, and center of gravity) reveals the extent to which velar fricatives display an intermediate status along the phonetic continuum of /s/ lenition variations. Taken together, these analyses shed light on the nature of coda /s/ in Spanish and on the extent to which the attested allophony constitutes a lenition process.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International Phonetic Association 2016 

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