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This article is about the phonology of the Spanish language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used on radio and television,[1][2][3][4] in Spain (for details, see the articles on History of the Spanish language and Spanish dialects and varieties). Spanish has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish phonemes (written in slashes / /) and corresponding allophones (written in brackets [ ]).
[edit] Consonants
Consonants in parentheses are phonemes of Standard Spanish but absent in many dialects, especially those in Latin America. [edit] Phonetic notes/t/ and /d/ are laminal denti-alveolar.[6] /b/, /d/, and /ɡ/ are approximants ([β̞], [ð̞], [ɣ˕]; hereafter represented without the undertack) in all places except after a pause, a nasal consonant or, in the case of /d/, after a lateral consonant; in such contexts they are voiced plosives.[7] Rarely, words spelled with p, t, c will have this pronunciation, when this occurs before a voiced consonant, as in fútbol [ˈfuðβol].[citation needed] /ʝ/ is an approximant in all contexts except after a nasal, /l/, or a pause where it may be an affricate ([ɟʝ]).[8][9] The approximant allophone differs from non-syllabic /i/ in a number of ways; it has a lower F2 amplitude, is longer, can only appear in the syllable onset (including word-initially, where non-syllabic /i/ never appears), is a palatal fricative in emphatic pronunciations, and is unspecified for rounding (e.g. viuda [ˈbjuða] 'widow' vs ayuda [aˈʝʷuða] 'help').[10] The two also overlap in distribution after /l/ and /n/: enyesar [ẽ̞ɲɟʝe̞ˈsar] ('to plaster') aniego [ãnje̞ɣo̞] ('flood').[11] Although there is dialectal and ideolectal variation, speakers may also exhibit other near-minimal pairs like abyecto ('abject') vs abierto ('opened').[12] [13] There are some alternations between the two, prompting Alarcos Llorach (1950)[14] to postulate an archiphoneme /I/[15] so that ley would be transcribed /ˈleI/ and leyes /ˈleIes/. In a number of varieties, including some American ones, a process parallel to the one distinguishing non-syllabic /i/ from consonantal /ʝ/ occurs for non-syllabic /u/ and a rare consonantal /w̝/.[16][17] Near minimal pairs include deshuesar [de̞zw̝e̞ˈsar] ('to bone') vs. desuello [de̞ˈswe̞ʝo̞] ('skinning'), son huevos [ˈsõ̞ŋ ˈw̝e̞βo̞s] ('they are eggs') vs son nuevos [ˈsõ̞ ˈnwe̞βo̞s] ('they are new'),[18] and huaca [ˈ(ɡ)w̝aka] ('Indian grave') vs u oca [ˈwo̞ka] ('or goose').[19] /θ/, /s/,[20] and /f/[21] become voiced before voiced consonants as in jazmín ('Jasmine') [xaðˈmĩn], rasgo ('feature') [ˈrazɣo̞], and Afganistán [avɣãnisˈtãn]. While /s/ becomes dental before denti-alveolar consonants, /θ/ remains interdental in all contexts.[22] /x/ may be pronounced uvular before /u/ (including when /u/ is in the syllable onset as [w]).[23] Although there are only three nasal phonemes and two lateral ones, /l/ and the nasal consonants assimilate to the place of articulation of following consonants[24] even across word boundaries.[25] Nasals are only contrastive before vowels; for most speakers, only [n] appears before a pause, though in Caribbean varieties this may instead be [ŋ] or an omitted nasal with nasalization of the preceding vowel.[26][27] Assimilatory allophones are shown in the following table:
[edit] Vowels
Spanish has five vowels /i/ /e/ /a/ /o/ /u/. Each occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables:[28]
Nevertheless, there are some distributional gaps or rarities. For instance, an unstressed high vowel in the final syllable of a word is rare.[32] Spanish has six falling diphthongs and eight rising diphthongs. While many of these are historically the result of a recatagorization of vowel sequences (hiatus) as diphthongs, there is still lexical contrast between diphthongs and hiatus.[33] There are also some lexical items that vary amongst speakers and dialects between hiatus and diphthong: words like biólogo ('biologist') with a potential diphthong in the first syllable and words like diálogo with a stressed or pretonic sequence of /i/ and a vowel vary between a diphthong and hiatus.[34] Chițoran & Hualde (2007) hypothesize that this is because vocalic sequences are longer in these positions. During fast speech, sequences of vowels in hiatus become diphthongs wherein one becomes non-syllabic (unless they are the same vowel, in which case they fuse together) as in poeta [ˈpo̯eta] ('poet') and maestro [ˈmae̯stɾo] ('teacher').[35] In the case of verbs like aliviar ('relieve'), diphthongs result from the suffixation of normal verbal morphology onto a stem-final /j/ (that is, aliviar would be |alibj| + |ar|).[36] This contrasts with verbs like ampliar ('to extend') which, by their verbal morphology, seem to have stems ending in /i/.[37] Spanish also possesses triphthongs like /wei/ and, in dialects that use a second person plural conjugation, /jai/, /jei/, and /wai/ (e.g. buey, 'ox'; cambiáis, 'you change'; cambiéis, '(that) you may change'; and averiguáis, 'you ascertain').[38] Non-syllabic /e/, /o/, and /a/ can be reduced to [ʝ], [w̝] and complete elision, respectively, as in beatitud [bʝatiˈtuð] ('beatitude'), poetisa [pw̝e̞ˈtisa] ('poetess'), and ahorita [o̞ˈɾita] ('right away'); the frequency (though not the presence) of this phenomenon differs amongst dialects, with a number having it occur rarely and others exhibiting it always.[39] Phonetic nasalization occurs for vowels occurring between nasal consonants or when preceding a syllable-final nasal.[40] [edit] StressSpanish is a syllable-timed language, so each syllable has the same duration regardless of stress.[41][42] Although pitch, duration, and loudness contribute to the perception of stress, pitch is the most important in isolation.[43] Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word, with some rare exceptions at the fourth last. The tendencies of stress assignment are as follows:[44]
In addition to the many exceptions to these tendencies, there are numerous minimal pairs which contrast solely on stress such as sábana ('sheet') and sabana ('savannah'), as well as límite ('boundary'), limite ('[that] he/she limits') and limité ('I limited'). Lexical stress may be marked orthographically with an acute accent (ácido, distinción, etc). This is done according to the mandatory stress rules of Spanish orthography which are similar to the tendencies above (differing with words like distinción) and are defined so as to unequivocally indicate where the stress lies in a given written word. An acute accent may also be used to differentiate homophones (such as té for 'tea' and te for 'you'). Lexical stress patterns are different between words carrying verbal and nominal inflection: in addition to the occurrence of verbal affixes with stress (something absent in nominal inflection), underlying stress also differs in that it falls on the last syllable of the inflectional stem in verbal words while those of nominal words may have ultimate or penultimate stress.[45] In addition, amongst sequences of clitics suffixed to a verb, the rightmost clitic may receive secondary stress, e.g. búscalo /ˈbuskaˌlo/ ('look for it').[46] [edit] AlternationsA number of alternations exist in Spanish that reflect diachronic changes in the language and arguably reflect morphonological processes rather than strictly phonological ones. For instance, a number of words alternate between /k/ and /θ/ or /ɡ/ and /x/ with the latter in each pair appearing before a front vowel:[47]
There are also alternations between unstressed /e/ and /o/ and stressed /je/ and /we/ respectively:[48]
Likewise, alternations occur between the palatal sonorants /ʎ ɲ/ and their corresponding alveolar sonorants /l n/ (doncella/doncel 'maiden'/'youth', desdeñar/desdén 'to scorn'/'scorn'). While it's true that Spanish-speakers have difficulty in pronouncing palatal consonants in the syllable coda, there is no alternation upon verbal or nominal inflection (that is, the plural of doncel is donceles, not *doncelles).[49] This is the result of geminated /ll/ and /nn/ of Vulgar Latin (the origin of /ʎ/ and /ɲ/, respectively) degeminating in coda position.[50] Words without any palatal-alveolar allomorphy are the result of historic borrowings.[51] Similarly, the alveolar trill ([r]) and alveolar tap ([ɾ]) contrast intervocalically but are otherwise in complementary distribution: [r] is found after /l/, /n/, and /s/, before consonants, and utterance finally; [ɾ] is found elsewhere.[52][53] Alternations exist when a rhotic appears word-finally. With words like amor, the rhotic manifests as the trill when said before a pause or a consonant-initial word as in amor paterno [ãˈmo̞r paˈte̞rno̞] ('paternal love') but as the tap when preceding a vowel-initial word as in amor eterno [ãˈmo̞ɾ e̞ˈte̞rno̞].[54] There are also alternations occurring with suffixation, such as when nouns are pluralized: amor [ãˈmo̞r] vs. amores [ ãˈmo̞ɾe̞s].[55] In more casual speech, a preconsonantal rhotic is the tap rather than the trill thus arma ('weapon') may be [ˈarma] or [ˈaɾma].[56] This has prompted a number of authors to postulate a single underlying rhotic; the intervocalic contrast then results from gemination (e.g. tierra /tieɾɾa/ → [ˈtje̞ra] 'earth').[57][58][59] Other alternations include /ks/ ~ /x/ (anexar vs anejo), [60] /kt/ ~ /tʃ/ (nocturno vs noche),[61] as well as pairs that show antepenultimate stress in nouns and adjectives but penultimate stress in synonymous verbs (vómito 'vomit' vs vomito 'I vomit').[62] [edit] Phonotactics
The Spanish syllable structure can be summarized as follows: C1 C2 S1 V S2 C3 C4 Spanish syllable structure allows a maximum of two consonants in its onset, a nucleus of a vowel followed by and/or preceded by a semivowel, and a maximum of two consonants in its coda. The following restrictions apply:
Examples of onsets: transporte /transˈpor.te/, flaco /ˈflako/, clave /ˈkla.be/ Because of these phonotactic constraints, an epenthetic /e/ is inserted before word-initial cluster beginning with /s/ (e.g. escribir 'to write') but not word-internally (transcribir 'to transcribe'),[63] thereby moving the initial /s/ to a separate syllable. While Spanish words undergo word-initial epenthesis, cognates in Latin and Italian do not:
[edit] Dialectal variationOne notable dialectal feature is the merging of /ʝ/ and /ʎ/ into one phoneme (yeísmo); in metropolitan areas of the Iberian Peninsula, /ʎ/ simply loses its laterality and in some South American countries, they are both realized as [ʒ].[64] Other dialectal variations include /x/ → [h] and the merging of /θ/ and /s/ in areas of Andalusia, Canary Islands, and Latin America (see ceceo for more information).[65] /s/ is also the subject of some variation; in most of Spain, it is apicoalveolar while it is laminal in Andalusia, Canary Islands, and Latin America.[66] In some dialects, /s/ may become the approximant [ɹ] in the syllable coda (doscientos: [do̞ɹˈθje̞nto̞s] 'two hundred').[67] In many places it debuccalizes to [h] in final position (niños), or before another consonant (fósforo) - in other words, the change occurs in the coda position in a syllable. From an autosegmental point of view, the /s/ phoneme in Madrid is defined only by its voiceless and fricative features. This means that the point of articulation is not defined and is determined from the sounds following it in the word or sentence. Thus in Madrid the following realizations are found: /peskado/ → [pe̞xkao̞] and /fosforo/ → [fo̞fːo̞ro̞]). In parts of southern Spain, the only feature defined for /s/ appears to be voiceless;[68] it may lose its oral articulation entirely to become [h]) or even a geminate with the following consonant ([ˈmihmo̞] or [ˈmĩmmo̞] from /ˈmismo/ 'same').[69] In Eastern Andalusian Spanish, word-final /s/ and /x/ (phonetically [h]) regularly weaken and the preceding vowel is lowered:
A subsequent process of vowel harmony takes place so that lejos ('far') is [ˈlɛhɔ], tenéis ('you all have') is [tɛˈnɛi] and tréboles ('clovers') is [ˈtɾɛβɔlɛ] or [ˈtɾɛβo̞lɛ].[70] Caribbean dialects, as well as those of Panama and of the Atlantic coast off Colombia, exhibit a form of simplification of coda consonants:
These deletions and neutralizations show variability in their occurrence, even with the same speaker in the same utterance, implying that nondeleted forms exist in the underlying structure.[75] This doesn't mean that these dialects are on the path to eliminating coda consonants, since these processes have existed for more than four centuries in these dialects.[76] Guitart (1997) argues that this is the result of speakers acquiring multiple phonological systems with uneven control similar to that of second language learners. In Standard Castilian, voiced obstruents are devoiced before a pause as in [se̞ð̥] ('thirst').[77] [edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
[edit] Further reading
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