Debuccalization and Deletion: /s/ in Spanish
Document Type
Event
Faculty Mentor
Conor Quinn
Abstract
The voiceless alveolar fricative is a phoneme present in every romance language. Phonological variance for this phoneme is very common in these languages. The places of articulation for its allophones generally are close in proximity to [s]. In Spanish, however, many dialects have [h] as an allophone of /s/, despite being glottal. This is known as debuccalization, which is the loss of oral features of articulation and reduction to laryngeal features. This occurs before a plosive and in the word final position. The way this phenomenon expresses itself varies from dialect to dialect (Ulfsbjornin, 2024). In Andalusian Spanish, when in front of a plosive, the plosive is aspirated and the /s/ phoneme is seemingly deleted. (Cronenberg, Gubian, Harrington & Ruch, 2020). In this paper, I explain why this variation occurs in many Spanish dialects via Optimality Theory and Autosegmental Phonology. The former posits that human language is controlled by constraints and conflicts between them. The conflicting constraints result from either markedness, which is the drive to keep features unmarked, or faithfulness, the drive to maintain lexical distinctions. (Krager, 2006). /s/ is voiceless, and thereby is unmarked for the feature of voicing; this would be represented as (-voice)., and it is marked for oral features, namely (+coronal) and (+anterior). When debuccalization occurs, it becomes unmarked for these features and its surface form becomes [h]. Autosegmental phonology, on the other hand, is a multi-linear analysis. Linear phonology looks at utterances as a series of segments and their features that distinguish them from other sounds, while multi-linear analysis introduces other tiers to represent features such as tone and roundedness. A linear analysis represents segments and their features on one line, and a multi-linear autosegmental analysis introduces a skeletal tier for consonant/vowel specification and tiers to represent roundedness and tone (Goldsmith, 1976). Optimality Theory will help us understand this phenomena by analyzing preferences towards markedness and faithfulness in Spanish, determining what role this plays in debuccalization. The skeletal tier in autosegmental phonology will help us understand aspiration in Andalusian Spanish. Finally, we will look at the /s/ phoneme in Portuguese, and how optimality theory can account for its allophones while also contrasting it with the /s/ in Spanish dialects that debuccalize it.
Debuccalization and Deletion: /s/ in Spanish
The voiceless alveolar fricative is a phoneme present in every romance language. Phonological variance for this phoneme is very common in these languages. The places of articulation for its allophones generally are close in proximity to [s]. In Spanish, however, many dialects have [h] as an allophone of /s/, despite being glottal. This is known as debuccalization, which is the loss of oral features of articulation and reduction to laryngeal features. This occurs before a plosive and in the word final position. The way this phenomenon expresses itself varies from dialect to dialect (Ulfsbjornin, 2024). In Andalusian Spanish, when in front of a plosive, the plosive is aspirated and the /s/ phoneme is seemingly deleted. (Cronenberg, Gubian, Harrington & Ruch, 2020). In this paper, I explain why this variation occurs in many Spanish dialects via Optimality Theory and Autosegmental Phonology. The former posits that human language is controlled by constraints and conflicts between them. The conflicting constraints result from either markedness, which is the drive to keep features unmarked, or faithfulness, the drive to maintain lexical distinctions. (Krager, 2006). /s/ is voiceless, and thereby is unmarked for the feature of voicing; this would be represented as (-voice)., and it is marked for oral features, namely (+coronal) and (+anterior). When debuccalization occurs, it becomes unmarked for these features and its surface form becomes [h]. Autosegmental phonology, on the other hand, is a multi-linear analysis. Linear phonology looks at utterances as a series of segments and their features that distinguish them from other sounds, while multi-linear analysis introduces other tiers to represent features such as tone and roundedness. A linear analysis represents segments and their features on one line, and a multi-linear autosegmental analysis introduces a skeletal tier for consonant/vowel specification and tiers to represent roundedness and tone (Goldsmith, 1976). Optimality Theory will help us understand this phenomena by analyzing preferences towards markedness and faithfulness in Spanish, determining what role this plays in debuccalization. The skeletal tier in autosegmental phonology will help us understand aspiration in Andalusian Spanish. Finally, we will look at the /s/ phoneme in Portuguese, and how optimality theory can account for its allophones while also contrasting it with the /s/ in Spanish dialects that debuccalize it.
