An acoustic study of /r/ front fricatives in Bolivian Highland Spanish

This study focuses on the acoustic characteristics of two fricative variants of /r/ in the highlands of Bolivia: a dominant postalveolar retroflex variant with or without initial linguo-palatal contact, [r̝, ʐ], present alongside a fronted variant [z]. We aim to differentiate these variants and acc...

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Main Authors: Philippe Boula de Mareüil, Alexis Pierrard, Albert Rilliard
Format: Article
Language:Catalan
Published: Universitat de Barcelona 2025-03-01
Series:Estudios de Fonética Experimental
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/47174
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author Philippe Boula de Mareüil
Alexis Pierrard
Albert Rilliard
author_facet Philippe Boula de Mareüil
Alexis Pierrard
Albert Rilliard
author_sort Philippe Boula de Mareüil
collection DOAJ
description This study focuses on the acoustic characteristics of two fricative variants of /r/ in the highlands of Bolivia: a dominant postalveolar retroflex variant with or without initial linguo-palatal contact, [r̝, ʐ], present alongside a fronted variant [z]. We aim to differentiate these variants and account for the contexts that trigger one or the other allophone. We analyse the productions of 10 speakers reading sentences in which words were inserted, including different stress and vowel contexts where /r/ appears. For 8 speakers, the results indicate that the [z] allophone occurs in 20% of productions, while 2 speakers do not produce this variant. The centre of gravity varies significantly according to the categorisation of [ʐ] vs [z], and the appearance of [z] is favoured by a front vowel context.
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institution Kabale University
issn 1575-5533
2385-3573
language Catalan
publishDate 2025-03-01
publisher Universitat de Barcelona
record_format Article
series Estudios de Fonética Experimental
spelling doaj-art-397c56f79a9045f58ef1e3c2524ecb592025-08-20T03:55:11ZcatUniversitat de BarcelonaEstudios de Fonética Experimental1575-55332385-35732025-03-013410.1344/efe-2025-34-41-56An acoustic study of /r/ front fricatives in Bolivian Highland SpanishPhilippe Boula de Mareüil0Alexis Pierrard1Albert Rilliard2Université Paris-Saclay & CNRS, LISNUniversität Bonn, IAK Université Paris-Saclay & CNRS, LISN This study focuses on the acoustic characteristics of two fricative variants of /r/ in the highlands of Bolivia: a dominant postalveolar retroflex variant with or without initial linguo-palatal contact, [r̝, ʐ], present alongside a fronted variant [z]. We aim to differentiate these variants and account for the contexts that trigger one or the other allophone. We analyse the productions of 10 speakers reading sentences in which words were inserted, including different stress and vowel contexts where /r/ appears. For 8 speakers, the results indicate that the [z] allophone occurs in 20% of productions, while 2 speakers do not produce this variant. The centre of gravity varies significantly according to the categorisation of [ʐ] vs [z], and the appearance of [z] is favoured by a front vowel context. https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/47174fricative rhoticsBolivian Highlands of CochabambaSpanishsociophonetics
spellingShingle Philippe Boula de Mareüil
Alexis Pierrard
Albert Rilliard
An acoustic study of /r/ front fricatives in Bolivian Highland Spanish
Estudios de Fonética Experimental
fricative rhotics
Bolivian Highlands of Cochabamba
Spanish
sociophonetics
title An acoustic study of /r/ front fricatives in Bolivian Highland Spanish
title_full An acoustic study of /r/ front fricatives in Bolivian Highland Spanish
title_fullStr An acoustic study of /r/ front fricatives in Bolivian Highland Spanish
title_full_unstemmed An acoustic study of /r/ front fricatives in Bolivian Highland Spanish
title_short An acoustic study of /r/ front fricatives in Bolivian Highland Spanish
title_sort acoustic study of r front fricatives in bolivian highland spanish
topic fricative rhotics
Bolivian Highlands of Cochabamba
Spanish
sociophonetics
url https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/47174
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