Rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz Mexican Spanish

  Phonetic studies of Spanish rhotics report a wide range of allophonic variants of the syllable-initial trill /r/, which raises the question of whether the intervocalic contrast between /r/ and the tap /ɾ/ has been neutralized in many dialects. This study presents a spectrographic analysis of s...

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Main Authors: Travis G. Bradley, Erik W. Willis
Format: Article
Language:Catalan
Published: Universitat de Barcelona 2012-05-01
Series:Estudios de Fonética Experimental
Subjects:
Online Access:http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/44188
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author Travis G. Bradley
Erik W. Willis
author_facet Travis G. Bradley
Erik W. Willis
author_sort Travis G. Bradley
collection DOAJ
description   Phonetic studies of Spanish rhotics report a wide range of allophonic variants of the syllable-initial trill /r/, which raises the question of whether the intervocalic contrast between /r/ and the tap /ɾ/ has been neutralized in many dialects. This study presents a spectrographic analysis of syllable-initial rhotics as produced by ten speakers of Veracruz Mexican Spanish in a guided, semi-spontaneous speech task. Trills that show a reduction in the degree of lingual trilling usually contain an approximant phase following one or two lingual contacts, which we represent as [ɾɹ] or [rɹ] in narrow transcription. Intervocalic taps show both reduction and elision, but those with a measurable contact are short enough to maintain an acoustic difference with the longer allophones of /r/. Taken with recent studies of rhotics in Dominican Spanish, these findings suggest that the contrast between /r/ and /ɾ/ can be maintained in terms of overall segmental duration even when there is no difference in the number of lingual contacts.
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spelling doaj-art-49172584655b4fe19b07d657e7102cdf2025-08-20T03:36:47ZcatUniversitat de BarcelonaEstudios de Fonética Experimental1575-55332385-35732012-05-0121Rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz Mexican SpanishTravis G. BradleyErik W. Willis   Phonetic studies of Spanish rhotics report a wide range of allophonic variants of the syllable-initial trill /r/, which raises the question of whether the intervocalic contrast between /r/ and the tap /ɾ/ has been neutralized in many dialects. This study presents a spectrographic analysis of syllable-initial rhotics as produced by ten speakers of Veracruz Mexican Spanish in a guided, semi-spontaneous speech task. Trills that show a reduction in the degree of lingual trilling usually contain an approximant phase following one or two lingual contacts, which we represent as [ɾɹ] or [rɹ] in narrow transcription. Intervocalic taps show both reduction and elision, but those with a measurable contact are short enough to maintain an acoustic difference with the longer allophones of /r/. Taken with recent studies of rhotics in Dominican Spanish, these findings suggest that the contrast between /r/ and /ɾ/ can be maintained in terms of overall segmental duration even when there is no difference in the number of lingual contacts. http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/44188rhoticsspectrographic analysisVeracruz Mexican Spanish
spellingShingle Travis G. Bradley
Erik W. Willis
Rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz Mexican Spanish
Estudios de Fonética Experimental
rhotics
spectrographic analysis
Veracruz Mexican Spanish
title Rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz Mexican Spanish
title_full Rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz Mexican Spanish
title_fullStr Rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz Mexican Spanish
title_full_unstemmed Rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz Mexican Spanish
title_short Rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz Mexican Spanish
title_sort rhotic variation and contrast in veracruz mexican spanish
topic rhotics
spectrographic analysis
Veracruz Mexican Spanish
url http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/44188
work_keys_str_mv AT travisgbradley rhoticvariationandcontrastinveracruzmexicanspanish
AT erikwwillis rhoticvariationandcontrastinveracruzmexicanspanish