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Sociophonetic analysis of phonemic trill variation in two sub-varieties of Peninsular Spanish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Nicholas Henriksen
Nicholas Henriksen*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
*Address for correspondence: Nicholas Henriksen, Romance Languages and Literatures, 4108 Modern Languages Building, 812 East Washington Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1275 Email nhenriks@umich.edu
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Abstract

In this paper we provide a preliminary characterization of the phonemic trill (i.e., /r/) as produced by twenty-four speakers of northern and central Peninsular Spanish. The acoustic analysis revealed a considerable number of non-canonical variants containing one or zero apical occlusions. The quantitative results showed robust effects of the following three factors on trill articulation: Speaker dialect, gender, and preceding vowel. Regarding social factors, central Peninsular speakers and male speakers showed the greatest propensity to produce fewer occlusions per phonemic trill. Regarding linguistic factors, non-canonical variants were especially common in contexts of preceding /u/; we interpret this result on articulatory grounds given the antagonistic gestures required for the trill and the high back vowel. All in all, these findings offer empirical support that geographically-oriented studies within a sociophonetic framework offer critical information on the diachrony of trill consonants.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistic Geography , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 4 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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