Variation in Palatal Production in Argentine Spanish

Outline
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Background and research questions Production experiment Variation in palatal production Correlates of variation Discussion Conclusions
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4th International Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics 18 April 2008

Charles B. Chang
cbchang@berkeley.edu

6.

Background: palatals in Argentine Spanish

Argentine Spanish is well-known among varieties of Spanish for its hardened palatals.
The palatal glide /j/ of Iberian Spanish is generally more constricted in Argentine Spanish, resulting in a fricative or affricate in all environments.

Background: palatals in Argentine Spanish

Resnick (1975): in Buenos Aires, [] occurs in all social classes; [] is colloquial and occurs sometimes, esp. among younger speakers Canfield (1981): [] and [j] are leveled to [], with [] occurring occasionally (esp. in womens speech) g y p p Fontanella de Weinberg (1992): En la actualidad coexisten realizaciones sonoras, ensordecidas y plenamente sordas [], [], [] socialmente condicionadas, ya que entre los hablantes ms jvenes y entre las mujeres el predominio de las variantes sordas y ensordecidas es mucho mayor.
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Colantoni (2006) examined the change from /j/ to // in some detail.

Many authors have noted variation in the realization of palatals.

Background: palatals in Argentine Spanish

Fontanella de Weinberg (1992): las mujeres menores de 30 aos eran en [1975] el grupo que presentaba usos ms ensordecidos de // y les seguan las hablantes femeninas mayores de 30 aos, mientras que los ndices de ensordecimiento de los hombres eran mucho menores dentro de cada edad, aproximndose los varones de 15 a 30 aos al uso de las mujeres de 31 a 70 aos.
3 types of systems in Buenos Aires:
1. 2. 3.

Research questions
What variants of the palatal phoneme are out there in Buenos Aires today? What is the nature of the variation? Is there a sound change in progress?

// // //

[] (older speakers) [], [] (middle-aged speakers) [] (younger speakers)

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Outline
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Production experiment: task type

Production of the palatal phoneme was elicited through a five-minute reading task consisting of comic strips from Toda Mafalda (Quino 2004).

Background and research questions Production experiment Variation in palatal production Correlates of variation Discussion Conclusions
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1. Where do you think humanity is headed?

2. Forward, of cour

3. FORWARD IS THAT WAY!

4. - That way is not forward! - But its my forward! - Your forward isnt my forward! - No! - Im beginning to understand why its so hard for humanity to move forward.

Production experiment: stimuli

The reading material contained the palatal phoneme in a wide range of environments:
different orthographic representations (<y> vs. <ll>) different word types
closed-class items (e.g. all there, yo I, ella she) open-class items (e.g. subdesarrollados underdeveloped)

Production experiment: procedure

Subjects were told the general purpose of the experiment (to analyze the Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires) and asked to read the passages at a comfortable pace and in a natural, conversational manner. manner Recordings were made with an AKG C420 headmounted condenser microphone and a Marantz PMD660 solid-state recorder (48 kHz, 16 bps).

different morphological statuses

association with the basic morpheme (e g rayado scratched, cf rayar to (e.g. scratched cf. to scratch) appearance restricted to certain parts of the paradigm (e.g. leyendo reading, cf. leer to read)

different phonological environments

word-initial (e.g. ya already, llama calls) word-medial (e.g. proyectos projects, millones millions) pre-tonic (e.g. ayuda help, sellito stamp) post-tonic (e.g. joyas jewels, estrellas stars) adjacent to high/front vowels (e.g. ayer yesterday, desarrollistas developmental) adjacent to low/back vowels (e.g. cay fell, gallo chicken)
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Production experiment: speakers

11 native speakers of Argentine Spanish from Buenos Aires or the surrounding area participated.
Speaker F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 Gender F F F F F M M M M M M Age (YOB) 21 (1986) 23 (1984) 32 (1975) 79 (1928) 67 (1940) 18 (1989) 18 (1989) 31 (1976) 36 (1971) 25 (1982) 69 (1938) Geographic origin Balvanera Balvanera Campana La Boca L B Crdoba Balvanera Colegiales Lomas de Zamora San Cristbal Balvanera Villa Urquiza Other languages English, Korean Korean, English English, Guaran Italian I li Italian, English Korean, English English English, Korean English ----11

Speaker geography: Bs.As. (Capital Federal)

F4 is from La Boca. M4 is from San Cristbal. F1, F2, M1, and M5 are from Balvanera. M2 is from Colegiales. M6 is from Villa Urquiza. Total of 4 communes

(from Tercco 2005)

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Speaker geography: Bs.As. (Capital Federal)

Aizpeolea (2006): La Boca and San Cristbal are less expensive neighborhoods. i hb h d Villa Urquiza, Colegiales, and Balvanera are more expensive neighborhoods.
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Speaker geography: Bs.As. Province

F3 is from the section of Campana. M3 is from the section of Lomas de Zamora. F5 is from the adjacent province of Crdoba.
(from Wikipedia)
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Outline
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Variation in production: acoustic measures

Three measures were taken in Praat 4.5.14 (Boersma & Weenink 2007).
overall percent usage of [] (perceptual measure)
tokens tagged as either sounding like [] or not total of 41 tokens of 28 words (all false starts, tokens with laughter, etc. thrown out)

Background and research questions Production experiment Variation in palatal production Correlates of variation Discussion Conclusions
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average percent voicelessness over a palatals duration

beginning and end points of a palatals duration determined by changes in the waveform (onset of noise, decrease in amplitude) and changes in the spectrogram (diffusion of F2/F3, onset of mid- to high-frequency noise) sections of a palatals duration showing both periodicity in the waveform and a voicing bar in the spectrogram counted as voiced

CV intensity ratio (= int. of palatal / int. of adjacent vowel)

average intensity measured over middle 50 ms of a segments duration (if less than 50 ms long, over the whole duration)
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Variation in production: acoustic measures

All measurements were taken on a Fourier spectrogram with a:
Gaussian window shape window length of 5 ms bandwidth f b d id h of 200 H Hz dynamic range of 50 dB pre-emphasis of 6 dB/octave

Variation in production: all data

Speaker F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 % [] usage 100.0 95.1 100.0 4.9 24.4 100.0 100 0 95.1 100.0 60.0 97.6 0.0 Avg % vcls 85.7 83.7 91.9 7.3 21.9 87.2 87 2 84.3 85.5 53.7 85.2 0.0 Int(C/V1) 0.89 0.81 0.84 0.91 0.85 0.80 0 80 0.82 0.84 0.84 0.75 0.93 Int(C/V2) 0.89 0.83 0.85 0.90 0.87 0.81 0 81 0.81 0.83 0.84 0.75 0.96

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Inter-speaker variation
There are voicers and devoicers.
F4/F5/M4/M6 vs. F1/F2/F3/M1/M2/M3/M5 (voicers) (devoicers) e.g. castellano Castilian (Spanish) g ( p )
Por qu demonios no escribirn estos libros en castellano?!

Intra-speaker variation
The devoicers are consistent in their productions.
F1, F2, F3, M1, M2, M3, M5 say [] everywhere.

The voicers are variable in their productions.

F4 alternates between [] and []. F5 generally alternates between [] and [], and says [] and even [] for a few forms. M6 alternates between [] and [], and also says [] for a few forms. M4 alternates between [] and [].
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e.g. brillante brilliant

Brillante idea, Manolito.

Intra-speaker variation: Speaker F4

F4 alternates between [] and [].
cepillo brush with []
0.2609 0.1397

Intra-speaker variation: Speaker F5

F5 generally alternates between [] and [].
all there with []
0.2609
0.3476

cepillo brush with []

ayuda help with []

0.1623 0 Time (s) 0.79975

0.08813 0 Time (s) 0.634417

0.1359 0 Time (s) 0.62975

0.249 0 Time (s) 0.560312

5000

5000

5000

5000

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

0 0 Time (s)

0.79975

0 0 Time (s)

0.634417

0 0 Time (s)

0.62975

0 0 Time (s)

0.560312

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Intra-speaker variation: Speaker F5

F5 also occasionally says [] and [].
all there with []
0.2977 0.2477

Intra-speaker variation: Speaker M6

M6 alternates between [d], [], and [].
castellano Spanish with []
0.7116

cepillo brush with []

brillante brilliant with []

0.7263

0.1759 0 Time (s) 0.468021

0.1578 0 Time (s) 0.817396

0.7219 0 Time (s) 0.989146

0.7412 0 Time (s) 0.870104

5000

5000

5000

5000

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

0 0 Time (s)

0.468021

0 0 Time (s)

0.817396

0 0 Time (s)

Frequency (Hz)
0.989146

0 0 Time (s)

0.870104

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Intra-speaker variation: Speaker M6

M6 also says [] and [j] for some forms.
all there with []
0.6836
0.4146

Intra-speaker variation: Speaker M4

M4 varies between voiced [] and voiceless [].
all there with []
0.4857 0.4889

estrellas stars with [j]

all there with []

0
0

0.6882 0 Time (s) 0.421083

0.2553 0 Time (s) 0.624708

0.4504 0 Time (s) 0.459958

0.5114 0 Time (s) 0.464312

5000

5000

5000

5000

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

0 0 Time (s)

0.421083

0 0 Time (s)

0.624708

0 0 Time (s)

Frequency (Hz) 0.459958 0 0 Time (s)

0.464312

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Intra-speaker variation: Speaker M4

M4 varies between voiced [] and voiceless [].
castellano Spanish with []
0.1437
0.3229

Outline
1. 2. 3.

Background and research questions Production experiment Variation in palatal production Correlates of variation Discussion Conclusions
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castellano Spanish with []

0
0

0.1157 0 Time (s) 0.793146

0.1767 0 Time (s) 0.578333

4. 5. 6.

5000

5000

Frequency (Hz)

Frequency (Hz)

0 0 Time (s)

0.793146

0 0 Time (s)

0.578333

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Sociolinguistic correlates of variation

% [] usage, average % voicelessness, and CV intensity ratios are not correlated with gender or home neighborhood.
Gender with
% [] usage Spearmans r .030 2-tailed p .931 Avg A % vcls l .000 1.000 Int(C/V1) (C/ ) -.350 .292 Int(C/V2) (C/ ) -.493 .123

Sociolinguistic correlates of variation

% [] usage, average % voicelessness, and CV intensity ratios are correlated with YOB.
Year of birth with
% [] usage Pearsons r 2-tailed p .960 <.0005 Avg % vcls .954 <.0005 Int(C/V1) -.685 .020 Int(C/V2) -.700 .016

Home neighborhood with

% [] usage Spearmans r -.270 2-tailed p .423 Avg % vcls -.237 .482 Int(C/V1) .502 .115 Int(C/V2) .444 .171
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As YOB increases (and age decreases), % [] usage and average % voicelessness increase, while CV intensity ratios decrease.
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Sociolinguistic correlates of variation

As YOB increases (and age decreases), % [] usage and average % voicelessness increase.

Sociolinguistic correlates of variation

As YOB increases (and age decreases), CV intensity ratios decrease.

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Discussion
There are at least six different allophones of the palatal phoneme in Buenos Aires: [], [], [d], [], [j], and []. There is a clearly age-graded pattern of usage.
speakers born before 1945 voiced allophones (mostly [], []) speakers born after 1975 voiceless allophones ([]) speakers in between voiced & voiceless allophones

Discussion
The change has progressed as: []/[j] > []/[] > [] This does not seem to be a case of change across the lifespan (cf. Guy & Boyd 1990, Sankoff & Blondeau 2007).
F1s usage has been stable over 9 years [] is an innovation; usage does not seem to increase in old age

The age-graded pattern is indicative of a sound change in progress: younger speakers have innovated the [] pronunciation.
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In 50 years, only devoicers left?

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Conclusions
The typology of Fontanella de Weinberg (1992) is quite accurate. Variation between voiced and voiceless allophones is correlated with age (no longer with gender) and reflects a sound change nearly complete. fl d h l l Though the innovation of [] may or may not have started with older speakers, younger speakers appear to be responsible for its generalization as the dominant variant in Buenos Aires today.
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References
Aizpeolea, Horacio. 2006. En un ao, subi casi el 30% el precio de alquiler de los locales. Clarn, 6 February. http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/02/06/laciudad/h-03601.htm. Retrieved 28 September 2007. Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. 2007. Praat: doing phonetics by computer. Version 4.5.14. http://www.praat.org. Canfield, D. Lincoln. 1981. Spanish Pronunciation in the Americas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Colantoni, Laura. 2006. Micro and Macro Sound Variation and Change in Argentine Spanish. In Selected Proceedings of the 9th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. Nuria Sagarra and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio 91-102 Somerville MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project Toribio, 91-102. Somerville, Project. Fontanella de Weinberg, Mara Beatriz. 1992. El espaol de Amrica. Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE. Guy, Gregory R., and Sally Boyd. 1990. The Development of a Morphological Class. Language Variation and Change 2: 1-18. Quino. 2004. Toda Mafalda. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones de la Flor. Resnick, Melvyn C. 1975. Phonological Variants and Dialect Identification in Latin American Spanish. The Hague: Mouton. Sankoff, Gillian, and Hlne Blondeau. 2007. Language Change across the Lifespan: /r/ in Montreal French. Language 83(3): 560-588. Tercco, Mario L. 2005. Buenos Aires, 2005. Caf de las Ciudades. http://www.cafedelasciudades.com.ar/politica_37.htm. Retrieved 28 September 2007.
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