Marielle Lerner
LING 563
12/7/2010
Assignment 6: Bermudez-Otero's Phase III
/o/-raising in Cantabria
One phonetic variable in Spanish that shows lexical conditioning is word-final /o/raising in the province of Cantabria, Spain, as reported by Holmquist in 1985 in a
study of the village Ucieda. Holmquist observed that "archaic" words are more
likely to be pronounced with [u] than [o], and furthermore show a mean closure
score 40% higher than for non-archaic words pronounced with [u] (Holmquist 194).
However, this variable is not apt for a study of the transmission or diffusion of
Bermudez-Otero's Phase III of sound change. First, Holmquist notes that younger
generations are usually not familiar with the archaic lexical items that condition
more /o/-raising. Second, the change is receding in general so that it is being
transmitted less and less with each generation. Third, there is probably not much
opportunity for diffusion as this change is most characteristic of those who are
somewhat isolated due to raising mountain animals, and the variable does not carry
any overt prestige (Holmquist 198).
Intervocalic /d/ lenition in New Mexico
The lenition of intervocalic /d/ in Spanish may also be said to have some lexical
conditioning. Bybee examines this variable among Spanish-dominant bilinguals in
New Mexico, and finds that more frequent lexical items are more likely to present
deletion of intervocalic /d/. Bybee excluded past participles from her analysis
because they are found to have the most frequently deleted /d/ (in the participial
ending -(a/i)do). It should be noted that Bybee calls this a phonetically gradual and
lexically gradual change. It is phonetically gradual because the pronunciation of /d/
ranges from [d] to [ð] to [] on a continuum, according to D'Introno and Sosa (1979)
(Bybee 265). However, in Bybee's examination, she has coded simply for absence or
presence of /d/, so that she is effectively demonstrating a lexically gradual but
phonetically abrupt change.
It is not clear whether this variable feature represents a change in progress or stable
variation. As far as I know there is no evidence for this being a change in progress,
although it is parallel to a historical change from Latin to Spanish that permanently
deleted intervocalic /d/ in many instances, as in the verb creer 'to believe' from the
Latin credere. Furthermore, I'm not sure whether there are any dialects of Spanish
lacking this variation, making a study of diffusion difficult. Using a corpus of
peninsular Spanish, Bybee found a lower rate of deletion, but the same frequency
effects (Bybee 284). She also compares this variable to -t,d deletion in English,
which may suggest its ubiquity among Spanish dialects.
/r/ lateralization in Caribbean Spanish
The pronunciation of word-final /r/ as /l/ occurs in Caribbean Spanish dialects
(notably in Puerto Rico, jokingly referred to as "puelto rico"). Lipski (1986)
observes that most Caribbean dialects have begun to expand the lateralization of /r/
to include pre-vocalic position. Lipski calls this a "reduction in allomorphy" (Lipski
1986:152-3). While it is not stated explicitly in Lipski's description it seems that the
expansion of /r/ lateralization to pre-vocalic environments could be preceding by
lexical diffusion.
This variable is present in some, but not all, Caribbean dialects. A possible case
study could be of Caribbean Spanish speakers who migrate from a region without
/r/ lateralization to one with it. Inmigrating adults could be studied for effectiveness
of diffusion of the pattern, and children within the period for language acquisition
for the results of transmission. There may be a dialect with purely word-final /r/
lateralization, and migrants from that dialect to one that has begun the expansion to
pre-vocalic lateralization could also be studied. This latter case would be parallel to
Payne's study in King of Prussia. In both cases the study would focus on whether
speakers encountering the new dialect are able to learn in which lexical items /r/
lateralization occurs pre-vocalically.
I’ve long been interested in the geographic distribution of r -> l in Puerto Rico; I
think Navarro-Tomas characterized it as rural and geographically limited. I wonder
if Otheguy is planning to study it or if he could use some help.
References
Bybee, Joan. 2002. Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion
of phonetically conditioned sound change. Language Variation and Change
14:261-290.
Holmquist, Jonathan C. Social Correlates of a Linguistic Variable: A Study in a
Spanish Village. Language in Society 14:191-203.
Lipski, John. 1986. Reduction of Spanish word-final /s/ and /n/. Canadian Journal of
Linguistics 31:139-156.
Lipski, John. 2007. El Español de America. Ediciones Catédra: Madrid.