Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Publication Date

Fall 11-5-2024

Abstract

Reduction of the Vocalic Sequence /ea/ in Tapatío Spanish

This study investigates reduction in the vocalic sequence /ea/ in spontaneous conversational Tapatío Spanish from CCT: El Corpus Conversacional Tapatío (Martínez Gómez & Ibarra Zetter, 2017). An example of this phenomenon is the vocalic sequence /ea/ in the word in teatro ‘theater,’ which is often produced as [ˈtja.tɾo]. However, the word azotea ‘rooftop’ is usually pronounced [a.so.ˈte.a] by CCT speakers. The lexical frequency of these words is one factor that influences the degree of /ea/ reduction. Typically, there is a correlation between the frequency of lexical items and their phonetic reduction (Bybee & Hopper, 2001b; Bybee, 2001).

The theoretical framework employed in this study aligns with the cognitive, usage-based, and frequency frameworks, which offer perspectives for comprehending speech reduction in real life communication (Bybee, 2001; Tomasello, 2003; Langacker, 1984; Pierrehumbert, 2001). Phonetic reduction is here characterized as the shortening of the magnitude of the gestural movement. Reduction thus affects gestural magnitude, or time (Browman & Goldstein, 1986;1992) and usually occurs in spontaneous speech. For consonants, there might be less constriction in the production of the typical characteristics, e.g., a fricative will be produced with less friction, a plosive with lesser closure and VOT. In vowels, their articulation might be more centralized, their duration might be decreased, or they could be produced without voicing, e.g., the vibration of the vocal folds.

Previous research in Spanish have primarily concentrated on investigating reduction through the analysis of elicited or semi-elicited data (Aguilar, 1997, 1999; Hualde and Prieto, 2002; Cabré & Prieto, 2006; Chitoran & Hualde, 2007; Alba, 2008; Garrido, 2007, 2008; Souza, 2010; Colantoni & Limanni, 2010; Garrido, 2013). This study builds upon previous research contributing to the field of Spanish linguistics by analyzing spontaneous speech used for daily life communication. The speech was produced in conversations carried among members of similar speech communities of practice and social networks (Eckert, 2000; Milroy & Milroy, 1980).

In agreement with Bybee et al., (2016) this study hypothesizes that speakers will reduce /e.a/ according to usage frequency. /e.a/ will likely show higher reduction in highly frequent lexical items than in less frequent items. In addition, reduction of /ea/ will be favored by lack of lexical stress, and according to word type, e.g., within words.

Some factors that favor /ea/ reduction are location across words, high frequency of use, and lack of lexical stress. In addition, /ea/ was more reduced in extremely frequent bigrams or in multiword items. This study also found that reduction occurs in a different manner when dealing with extremely frequent lexical units, such as the discourse markers de acuerdo ‘I agree’ or o sea ‘like’, ‘this is.’ Additionally, the vocalic sequence /ea/ canonically described as a hiatus [e.a] might be oftentimes pronounced as the diphthong [ja] or any of the monophthongs [e] or [a]. This implies a whole vowel reduction that might impact syllable structure. The remaining vowel could experience a durational increase for pragmatic purposes. patterns of reduction for the vocalic sequence /ea/ in contemporary conversational Tapatío Spanish, while also examining its association with lexical patterns.

Degree Name

Spanish & Portuguese (PhD)

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Spanish and Portuguese

First Committee Member (Chair)

Rich File-Muriel

Second Committee Member

Joan Bybee

Third Committee Member

Earl K. Brown

Fourth Committee Member

Chris Koops

Language

English

Keywords

Reduction, Vocalic Sequence, Tapatío, Spanish, Spontaneous Conversation, Prefabs, Prefabricated Language, Natural Conversations, Conversational Corpus

Document Type

Dissertation

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