The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis

This paper presents an acoustic and sociolinguistic analysis of the Andean variety of Spanish spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador, a variety reputed for its “sing-song” intonation. 1,628 pitch accents were analyzed to establish an inventory of broad focus declaratives for this variety. Noteworthy is that a t...

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Main Authors: Brenda Froemming, Rajiv Rao
Format: Article
Language:Catalan
Published: Universitat de Barcelona 2021-05-01
Series:Estudios de Fonética Experimental
Subjects:
Online Access:http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/43984
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author Brenda Froemming
Rajiv Rao
author_facet Brenda Froemming
Rajiv Rao
author_sort Brenda Froemming
collection DOAJ
description This paper presents an acoustic and sociolinguistic analysis of the Andean variety of Spanish spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador, a variety reputed for its “sing-song” intonation. 1,628 pitch accents were analyzed to establish an inventory of broad focus declaratives for this variety. Noteworthy is that a tritonal pitch accent, most frequently attested with other focal contexts, occurred 312 times (19%) throughout the corpus and in all utterance positions. This result is compared to the contexts in which the tritonal has occurred in other Spanish and Romance varieties. Finally, the sociolinguistic portion reveals that gender (as opposed to age or socioeconomic status) is a key variable and explores the possible motivations for the use of the tritonal pitch accent.
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series Estudios de Fonética Experimental
spelling doaj-art-65492b67fff147aa810430cd2df8b95a2025-08-20T01:57:27ZcatUniversitat de BarcelonaEstudios de Fonética Experimental1575-55332385-35732021-05-0130The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic AnalysisBrenda Froemming0Rajiv Rao1University of Wisconsin-MadisonUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison This paper presents an acoustic and sociolinguistic analysis of the Andean variety of Spanish spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador, a variety reputed for its “sing-song” intonation. 1,628 pitch accents were analyzed to establish an inventory of broad focus declaratives for this variety. Noteworthy is that a tritonal pitch accent, most frequently attested with other focal contexts, occurred 312 times (19%) throughout the corpus and in all utterance positions. This result is compared to the contexts in which the tritonal has occurred in other Spanish and Romance varieties. Finally, the sociolinguistic portion reveals that gender (as opposed to age or socioeconomic status) is a key variable and explores the possible motivations for the use of the tritonal pitch accent. http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/43984Andean SpanishTritonalIntonationPitch accents
spellingShingle Brenda Froemming
Rajiv Rao
The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis
Estudios de Fonética Experimental
Andean Spanish
Tritonal
Intonation
Pitch accents
title The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis
title_full The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis
title_fullStr The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis
title_full_unstemmed The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis
title_short The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis
title_sort tritonal pitch accent in the broad focus declaratives of the spanish spoken in cuenca ecuador an acoustic and sociolinguistic analysis
topic Andean Spanish
Tritonal
Intonation
Pitch accents
url http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/experimentalphonetics/article/view/43984
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