The Phonetics and Phonology of S-Lenition and Vowel Laxing in Eastern Andalusian Spanish by Lindsey C. Corbin Professor Nathan Sanders, advisor Athesis submittedinpartialfulfillment oftherequirementsforthe DegreeofBachelorofArtswithHonors in Linguistics WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, Massachusetts May10,2006 Contents Chapter1: Introduction.............................................................................................6 §1.1Features of Eastern Andalusian Spanish..............................................6 §1.2Laxing............................................................................................................7 §1.3S-Lenition in Codas....................................................................................9 §1.4 Traditional Analysis.................................................................................14 §1.5Optimality Theory....................................................................................15 Chapter2: Phonetic Analysis of S-Lenition and Laxing..............................17 §2.1Methods.......................................................................................................17 §2.1.1Participants.....................................................................................17 §2.1.2Equipment.......................................................................................17 §2.1.3Procedure........................................................................................17 §2.2 Data..............................................................................................................19 §2.2.1RealizationDistributions ...............................................................20 §2.2.2Laxing.............................................................................................21 §2.2.3Gemination.....................................................................................27 §2.3 Summary of Results.................................................................................30 Chapter3: Gemination ............................................................................................32 §3.1 Description of Gemination .....................................................................32 §3.2 Methods ......................................................................................................33 §3.2.1Participants ....................................................................................33 §3.2.1Equipment ......................................................................................33 2 §3.2.3Procedure........................................................................................34 §3.3 Data .............................................................................................................36 §3.3.1OccurrenceofGemination..............................................................36 §3.3.2PatterningofLenitionEffects.........................................................39 §3.4SummaryofResults............................................................................42 Chapter4: Optimality Theory ..............................................................................43 §5.1 Optimality Theory ...................................................................................43 §5.2Laxing in Closed Syllables .....................................................................44 §5.3 S-Lenition...................................................................................................46 §5.3.1Gemination.....................................................................................47 §5.3.2Aspiration.......................................................................................53 Chapter5: Conclusion..............................................................................................56 References......................................................................................................................63 Appendix A: Experiment 1 Participant Copy..................................................67 Appendix B: Experiment 1 Master Sheet...........................................................70 Appendix C: Experiment 2 Noun List.................................................................75 Appendix D: Experiment 2 Verb Phrases..........................................................76 Appendix E: Complete List of Constraints Used............................................80 3 Acknowledgments IwouldliketothankProfessorNathan Sanders,myadvisor,forallofhishelpand supervision this year. Pursinga contract major in linguistics, let alone writinga thesis on this subject, would not have been possible without him. His support and advice has been absolutelyinvaluable. I am also grateful to Dean Peter Grudin for offering me so much assistance and guidance on the path to creating a contract major in linguistics. I doubt that my proposal wouldhavebeenapprovedwithouthishelpfulsuggestions. I would also like to thank Professor Steven Fein for teaching me the statistics I needed to analyze my data from these experiments, and for allowing me to consult with himwhen Ihadaquestionaboutstatisticalproceduresortests. Finally, the difficult times this year, inevitable with such a large project, were always made easier by the encouragement and love of my family and friends, whom I cannotthank enough. I would like to dedicate this thesis to myparentsin particular, who have been giving me love and support since the day I was born, and who have always inspiredmetotrytoreach myhighestpotential. 4 Abstract This thesis will examine the interaction of laxing and s-lenition in Eastern Andalusian Spanish. The first experiment will confirm that laxing of vowels, always seen in closed syllables in EAS, occurs even in syllables where the coda has been deleted by s-lenition The second experiment will provide an answer to why this is the case, and why this phenomenon does not represent a case of opacity for Optimality Theory. A set of constraint rankings will be proposed to govern laxing and s-lenition, and the effects of s-lenitiononthesurroundingsounds. 5 Chapter 1: Introduction §1.1 Features of Eastern Andalusian Spanish Andalusia is the southernmost and second-most populated autonomous community in Spain, stretching across the southern portion of the country from coast to coast and including the provinces of Huelva, Granada, Córdoba, Cádiz, Málaga, Jaén, Sevilla, and Almeria. The Andalusian dialect, spoken byclose to eight million people,is quite distinct from Standard Peninsular Spanish (SPS), which is mainly spoken in the central regions of Spain. Although there are linguistic traits typical of the Andalusian region as a whole, such as the weakening of obstruents in codas and the pronunciation of a voiceless [h], there is a significant distinction inmoraic phonology between the eastern and western halves of Andalusia, specifically involving the interaction of two phonologicalphenomena. Thefirst phenomenonis characteristicnotonlyof Andalusian Spanishas a whole, but also exists generally in SPS: the laxing of non-low vowels in closed syllables. In 6 Andalusian Spanish, the environment governing laxing is not straightforward, because obstruents are not tolerated in the codas of syllables, and are either aspirated or deleted. This is especially noticeable in the case of /s/, because of its morphological significance. In Spanish, /s/ is not only a way to mark plurals, but also to conjugate verbs for the second person singular. In Western Andalusian Spanish this lenition of coda obstruents leads to a re-tensing of the vowels, retaining laxed vowels only in syllables closed by sonorants,which would not havebeen deleted. In EAS however,alllaxed vowels remain so, even if the environment for laxing has been removed through deletion of the coda segment. As was mentioned before, this EAS phenomenon ofthe retention of laxed vowels in syllables with deleted codas has special implications for /s/, since unlike other obstruents, it has a morphological significance. In WAS, the distinction between singulars and plurals may be lost in cases where /s/ is the only mark of a plural (/es/ is used in some cases). In EAS, because of its retention of the lax vowels, this differenceis preserved. Bothlaxingands-lenitionarediscussedinmoredepthbelow. §1.2 Laxing In its underlying form, Spanish has a typical 5-vowel system: /i e a o u/. In the output however, each of the four non-low vowels has two allophones: one tense and one lax. The onlylow vowel in Spanish, /a/, only has the lax form, likely due to thephysical difficulty of tensing such a low vowel (see Chapter 5 for more details). The tense allophones appear in open syllables, and the lax allophones appear in closed syllables. The laxing of a vowel is characterized by centralization. This causes a lowering of the vowel, which translates into higher first formants. In front vowels, centralization also 7 causesbackingofthevowels,leadingtolowersecondformants. Backvowels experience fronting, andthus their second formants raise. The fronting and backing are less robust changesthanthelowering,however. Figure1 belowdemonstrates thesechanges: Figure1:Laxingof SpanishVowels i u     e o   ε  a As Figure 1 illustrates, as each of the four non-low Spanish vowels centralize, /i/ becomes [], /e/ becomes [ε], /o/ becomes [and /u/ becomes []. To illustrate the effectsoflaxing,Table1 lists possibleformantvalues foreachofthese vowels. Table1:Example Formants ofSpanishTenseand Lax Vowels Vowels Tense Lax F1(Hz) F2(Hz) F1(Hz) F2(Hz) i 350 2500 450 2400 e 500 2000 650 1900 a - - 750 1650 o 500 1350 650 1450 u 350 1350 450 1450 Below are sample words used in the experiments in this thesis which show each ofthesevowel allophones intheirexpectedenvironments: 8 [i] niño /nio/ [nio] ‘boy’  difícil /difiθil/ [difiθl] ‘difficult’ [e] veo /beo/ [beo] ‘Isee’ [ε] verde /berde/ [bεrðe] ‘green’ [a] hija /iha/ [iha] ‘daughter’ [a] usan /usan/ [usan] ‘theyuse’ [o] ojo /oho/ [oho] ‘eye’ [] hombre /ombre/ [mbre] ‘man’ [u] una /una/ [una] ‘(feminine form)   un /un/ [  ‘a’ (masculineform) §1.3 S-Lenition in Codas Anotherfeature of EASis the weakening of /s/ in codas. This lenition is due to a dislike for having unlicensed obstruents in codas. All obstruents in codas are lenited in EAS, however the argument was made by Chip Gerfen (2001a, to appear) that differences exist that distinguish s-lenition from the weakening of other moraic obstruents. His research studied the effects of obstruent-lenition on the lengths of preceding vowels and following consonants, and found a statistically significant difference between the effects of moraic s-lenition versus those caused by the weakening of other obstruents in the coda of a syllable. Since this thesis also seeks to study the effect of lenition on surrounding sounds, it is logical to focus on the weakening of the moraic/s/only,andnottrytocombinetwodifferentphenomena. 9 The lenition of /s/ causes it to be either aspirated or deleted. For example, mes (‘month’) might be realized as either [mε] or [mε]. In aspiration, the place features of the /s/ are deleted, and the segment assimilates the place features of the preceding vowel. This leaves an apparently lengthened vowel with a period of voiceless at the end where the lenited /s/ had been. This can be seen in the spectrograms in Figure 2 and Figure 3. Figure 2 shows the spectrogram of hombre usa, and Figure 3 shows the spectrogram of the plural form of the phrase, hombres usan, in which the /s/ in hombres has been aspirated. Figure2: /om.bre.u.sa/ [m.bre.u.sa] ‘man uses’  m b r e u s a 10