In Venezuelan Spanish?

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish?

Olga Scrivner

Indiana University

February 18, 2012

[email protected] Caribbean dialects are well known for their high rate of aspiration and deletion of syllable ﬁnal /s/:

Puerto-Rico (Hochnerg 1986), Honduras (Lipski 1983) Colombia (Kiely 2003) Venezuela (Ruiz-S´anchez2005) Cuba (Terrell 1974, 1977)

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Carribean Dialect

Venezuelan variety of Spanish is one of the Caribbean dialects of Spanish. What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Carribean Dialect

Venezuelan variety of Spanish is one of the Caribbean dialects of Spanish.

Caribbean dialects are well known for their high rate of aspiration and deletion of syllable ﬁnal /s/:

Puerto-Rico (Hochnerg 1986), Honduras (Lipski 1983) Colombia (Kiely 2003) Venezuela (Ruiz-S´anchez2005) Cuba (Terrell 1974, 1977) What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Aspiration

Venezuela: /s/ weakening is the prestige form Other dialects: /s/ retention is the prestige form

(Lipsky 1994) What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Morphological Load

Word-ﬁnal /s/ carries a high functional information:

Number distinction: singular - plural juguete ”toy” - juguetes ”toys” Person distinction: third-person singular - second-person singular: habla ”he/she speaks” - hablas ”you speak” 1 Change of vowel quality (Navarro Tom´as 1939, 1966, Honsa 1965) 2 Change of vowel duration (Hammond and Resnick 1975)

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Question

How speakers in /s/ deleting varieties preserve morphological information encoded in the lost morpheme? What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Question

How speakers in /s/ deleting varieties preserve morphological information encoded in the lost morpheme?

1 Change of vowel quality (Navarro Tom´as 1939, 1966, Honsa 1965) 2 Change of vowel duration (Hammond and Resnick 1975) Expended vowel system in Puerto Rico (Nazario 1990)

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Vowel Quality

Aspiration and deletion of /s/ triggers allophonic alterations (Morales 1979, Navarro Thom´as1966, Nazario 1990):

1 Open-close contrast for mid-vowels /e,o/ 2 Front-back contrast for /a/ What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Vowel Quality

Aspiration and deletion of /s/ triggers allophonic alterations (Morales 1979, Navarro Thom´as1966, Nazario 1990):

1 Open-close contrast for mid-vowels /e,o/ 2 Front-back contrast for /a/ Expended vowel system in Puerto Rico (Nazario 1990) Syllable-ﬁnal /s/ increases vowel duration: costa ‘coast’ and cota ‘level’ Word-ﬁnal /s/ does not change vowel duration: costas ‘coasts’ and costa ‘coast’

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Vowel Duration

Recent acoustic studies have found evidence of vowel lengthening (Hammond and Resnick 1975, Figueroa 2000 (Puerto-Rico)). What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction

Vowel Duration

Recent acoustic studies have found evidence of vowel lengthening (Hammond and Resnick 1975, Figueroa 2000 (Puerto-Rico)).

Syllable-ﬁnal /s/ increases vowel duration: costa ‘coast’ and cota ‘level’ Word-ﬁnal /s/ does not change vowel duration: costas ‘coasts’ and costa ‘coast’ What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Introduction Research Questions Research Questions

1. Is there any systematic difference in vowel frequency in Venezuelan dialect? 2. What is the duration effect in these contexts (if any)? 3. What factors (linguistic and social) influence vowel frequency distribution (if any)? What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Vowels Vowel System in Spanish

The Spanish vowel system is traditionally described as stable (Navarro Tom´as1977), and characterized by a triangular shape of vowel space.

Vowel Space (Quilis and Esgueva 1983)

200 i 300 u ) z

H 400 (

1 e

n o a

m 500 r o F 600

a 700

2400 2200 2000 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 Formant 2 (Hz) What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Vowels Vowel Formants

F1: open/close dimension the higher is the number, the more open is the vowel F2: back/front dimension the higher is the number, the more fronted is the vowel What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Vowels /s/ Deletion Context

/e, o/ → more open (higher value of F1) /a/ → more back (lower value of F2) What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Corpus Caracas Corpus

Data come from the corpus Estudio Socioling¨u´ısticode Caracas (Bentivoglio and Sedano 1990). The corpus was created between 1987-1988 Semi-directed sociolinguistic interviews All participants were born and raised in Caracas Speakers were stratiﬁed by age, gender and socioeconomic group Excluded items 1. /s/ in onset : unos supuestos ‘some assumptions’ 2. Vowel sequence: que estaba ‘that I was’

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Corpus Data Selection

a. /s/ syllable-ﬁnal: entrevista ‘interview’ b. /s/ word-ﬁnal: juguetes ‘toys’, dos ‘two’ What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Corpus Data Selection

a. /s/ syllable-ﬁnal: entrevista ‘interview’ b. /s/ word-ﬁnal: juguetes ‘toys’, dos ‘two’

Excluded items 1. /s/ in onset : unos supuestos ‘some assumptions’ 2. Vowel sequence: que estaba ‘that I was’ What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Corpus Total

Total 832 items: a:186 e:187 i:159 o:154 u:146 What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Corpus Points of measurement

F1 and F2 values are measured at the central point of each vowel (Praat 4.0 Boersma, 2001) and normalized (NORM SUITE -Thomas 2007) 1 Tokens must be split in two groups according to the /s/ status: /s/ deleted or aspirated /s/ retained 2 Each group must be split in a stress and unstressed subgroup 3 Each subgroup must be divided according to the /s/ function:

Morphemic /s/: casas ‘houses’ Non-morphemic /s/: tres ‘three’, esta ‘this’ 4 Calculate mean value separately for each subgroup

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology New Approach Working Hypothesis

Assumption: Deletion or aspiration of /s/ induces a vowel change in order to preserve morphological information. What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology New Approach Working Hypothesis

Assumption: Deletion or aspiration of /s/ induces a vowel change in order to preserve morphological information.

1 Tokens must be split in two groups according to the /s/ status: /s/ deleted or aspirated /s/ retained 2 Each group must be split in a stress and unstressed subgroup 3 Each subgroup must be divided according to the /s/ function:

Morphemic /s/: casas ‘houses’ Non-morphemic /s/: tres ‘three’, esta ‘this’ 4 Calculate mean value separately for each subgroup What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology New Approach Means

Vowel Formants in the Context of Retained /s/ Vowels before retained /s/

400

500 i u ) z e H

( 600

o t n a m r

o 700 F

800 a

2000 1900 1800 1700 1600 1500 1400 Formant 2 (Hz) F1: Raising of /a/ F2: Fronting of all vowels

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology New Approach Means

Vowel Formants in the Context of Deleted and Aspirated /s/ Red - Vowels before Morphemic /s/; Blue - Vowels before Non-Morphemic /s/

400

500 i i u u ) z H (

t 600 e o o

n e a m r o F 700 a a

800

2200 2100 2000 1900 1800 1700 1600 1500 1400 Formant 2 (Hz) What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology New Approach Means

Vowel Formants in the Context of Deleted and Aspirated /s/ Red - Vowels before Morphemic /s/; Blue - Vowels before Non-Morphemic /s/

400

500 i i u u ) z H (

t 600 e o o

n e a m r o F 700 a a

800

2200 2100 2000 1900 1800 1700 1600 1500 1400 Formant 2 (Hz)

F1: Raising of /a/ F2: Fronting of all vowels What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Codiﬁcation Codiﬁcation

Dependent variables: F1, F2 Independent variables: Sociolinguistic and Linguistic factors What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Codiﬁcation Dependent Variables - F1

F1: Vowel before morphemic /s/ F1: Before non-morphemic /s/

vowel value vowel value i 495 i 492 e 612 e 601 o 606 o 606 a 698 a 732 u 518 u 532

If vowel has F1 higher than mean value, it is codified as an open vowel. If F1 is less than mean value, it is codified as a close vowel. What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Codification Dependent Variables - F2

F2: Vowel before morphemic /s/ F2: Before non-morphemic /s/

vowel value vowel value i 2191 i 2097 e 1952 e 1946 o 1609 o 1564 a 1904 a 1805 u 1624 u 1459

If vowel has F2 higher than mean value, it is codified as a fronted vowel. If F2 is less than mean value, it is codified as a back vowel. What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Codification Independent Variables

Sociolinguistic factors 1. Sex: Male and Female 2. Age: 14-29, 30-45, 61+ 3. Socio-economic group: Upper, Middle, Low What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Methodology Codiﬁcation Linguistic Factors

1. Frequency: lexical frequency was drawn from the online CREA corpus (‘Reference Corpus of Contemporary Spanish’) http://corpus.rae.es/creanet.html 2. Stress: stress (autop´ısta ‘highway’) and non-stress (asustada ‘scared’) 3. Following context: vowel, consonant, pause 4. Duration: long vowel and short vowel (based on the median value (0.44 ms). 5. Morphemic status of /s/: morphemic (plural form and 2nd person) and non-morphemic 6. Type of /s/: retained, aspirated and deleted 7. Type of vowel: /a, e ,i, o, u/ Morphemic status versus type of /s/

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Descriptive Statistics Descriptive Statistics

Retained /s/ Aspirated /s/ Deleted /s/ 22% 55% 23% What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Descriptive Statistics Descriptive Statistics

Retained /s/ Aspirated /s/ Deleted /s/ 22% 55% 23%

Morphemic status versus type of /s/ What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Descriptive Statistics Descriptive Statistics Red - Vowels before Morphemic /s/; Blue - Vowels before Non-Morphemic /s/

400

500 i i u u ) z H (

t 600 e o o

n e a m r o F 700 a a

800

2200 2100 2000 1900 1800 1700 1600 1500 1400 Formant 2 (Hz)

The observed pattern (F2 fronting and /a/ raising) is tested for statistical signiﬁcance.

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis Rbrul

Statistical analysis with Rbrul (Johnson 2000) is conducted separately for F2 and F1 values. What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis Rbrul

Statistical analysis with Rbrul (Johnson 2000) is conducted separately for F2 and F1 values.

Red - Vowels before Morphemic /s/; Blue - Vowels before Non-Morphemic /s/

400

500 i i u u ) z H (

t 600 e o o

n e a m r o F 700 a a

800

2200 2100 2000 1900 1800 1700 1600 1500 1400 Formant 2 (Hz)

The observed pattern (F2 fronting and /a/ raising) is tested for statistical signiﬁcance. Factor group Factor weight Proportion % Tokens High 0.55 52 321 Low 0.51 49 239 Middle 0.44 42 272 Morphemic 0.55 52 369 Non-morphemic 0.46 44 463

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis F2 Fronting

Two factors are statistically signiﬁcant: 1 Socio-economic group 2 Morphemic status What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis F2 Fronting

Two factors are statistically signiﬁcant: 1 Socio-economic group 2 Morphemic status Factor group Factor weight Proportion % Tokens High 0.55 52 321 Low 0.51 49 239 Middle 0.44 42 272 Morphemic 0.55 52 369 Non-morphemic 0.46 44 463 What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis F2 - Female Speakers

Factor groups Factors Weight Proportion % No. Tokens Age 14-29 0.56 54 151 30-45 0.55 51 136 65+ 0.40 38 120 Vowels /o/ 0.59 57 74 /u/ 0.56 56 71 /a/ 0.54 54 98 /e/ 0.47 47 90 /i/ 0.24 24 74 Duration short 0.58 57 198 long 0.42 39 209 What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis F2 - Male Speakers

Factor groups Factors Weight Proportion % No. Tokens Vowels /i/ 0.63 60 85 /e/ 0.629 59.8 97 /a/ 0.44 41 88 /o/ 0.43 40 80 /u/ 0.36 33 75 What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis Vowel Comparison between Male and Female Speakers What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis /a/ Raising

Factor groups Factors Weight Proportion % No. Tokens Age 65+ 0.67 64 58 14-29 0.54 50 68 30-45 0.30 28 60 Type of /s/ deletion 0.67 62 65 aspiration 0.47 42 101 retention 0.36 30 20 Duration short 0.64 60 98 long 0.36 33 88 What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Results Rbrul Analysis Comparison between Male and Female Speakers

Male Speakers Age 65+ 0.88 Female Speakers 14-29 0.33 Duration 30-45 0.21 short 0.62 Duration long 0.40 short 0.69 long 0.31 What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Discussion

Discussion

Vowel quality change

Navarro Thom´as(1966): Corpus of Caracas:

High - low alternation Front - back for /e, o/ alternation for vowels (Raising of F1) (Fronting of F2) Front - back High - low alternation alternation for /a/ for /a/ (Backing of F2) (Raising of F1) These two facts point to a pattern that might be considered a linguistic innovation (Labov 1990, Guy 1990) The fronting of /i, e/ appears to be a linguistic pattern carried by men The fronting of /a, o, u/ seems to be an innovation carried by young and middle age females

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Discussion

Language Change?

The fronting seems to be promoted by Low class and upper working class Younger speakers The fronting of /i, e/ appears to be a linguistic pattern carried by men The fronting of /a, o, u/ seems to be an innovation carried by young and middle age females

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Discussion

Language Change?

The fronting seems to be promoted by Low class and upper working class Younger speakers These two facts point to a pattern that might be considered a linguistic innovation (Labov 1990, Guy 1990) The fronting of /i, e/ appears to be a linguistic pattern carried by men The fronting of /a, o, u/ seems to be an innovation carried by young and middle age females What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Discussion

Language Change?

/a/ raising seems to be: Promoted by older speakers Decreasing with a new generation What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Discussion

Duration

The data confirmed the findings by Figueroa (2000) with respect to duration: There is no evidence of vowel lengthening in word-final /s/ induced by /s/ deletion and aspiration Yes, but the patterns differ from traditional open-close (/e,o/) and front-back (/a/) contrasts:

1 Open-close opposition for vowel /a/ 2 Front-back contrast for /e,o,a,i,u/

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Research Questions

1. Is there any systematic diﬀerences in the quality of vowels preceding /s/? What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Research Questions

1. Is there any systematic diﬀerences in the quality of vowels preceding /s/?

Yes, but the patterns diﬀer from traditional open-close (/e,o/) and front-back (/a/) contrasts:

1 Open-close opposition for vowel /a/ 2 Front-back contrast for /e,o,a,i,u/ Shorter vowels are preferred in the morphemic contexts

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Research Questions

2. What is the duration eﬀect in these contexts? What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Research Questions

2. What is the duration eﬀect in these contexts? Shorter vowels are preferred in the morphemic contexts 1 Fronting Socio-economic group Morphemic status 2 /a/ raising Age Type of /s/ Duration

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Research Questions

3. What factors (linguistic and social) inﬂuence the vowel quality? What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Research Questions

3. What factors (linguistic and social) inﬂuence the vowel quality? 1 Fronting Socio-economic group Morphemic status 2 /a/ raising Age Type of /s/ Duration 2 Formant values are collected from sociolinguistic interviews (compared to previous acoustic and perceptual lab studies) 3 The study has suggested a novel method in calculating vowel means separately in the morphemic and non-morphemic context 4 The new method has detected language change patterns (fronting and /a/ raising)

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Conclusion

1 This investigation has analyzed vowel system in the context of aspiration and deletion of /s/ 3 The study has suggested a novel method in calculating vowel means separately in the morphemic and non-morphemic context 4 The new method has detected language change patterns (fronting and /a/ raising)

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Conclusion

What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Conclusion

1 This investigation has analyzed vowel system in the context of aspiration and deletion of /s/ 2 Formant values are collected from sociolinguistic interviews (compared to previous acoustic and perceptual lab studies) 3 The study has suggested a novel method in calculating vowel means separately in the morphemic and non-morphemic context What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

Conclusion

1 This investigation has analyzed vowel system in the context of aspiration and deletion of /s/ 2 Formant values are collected from sociolinguistic interviews (compared to previous acoustic and perceptual lab studies) 3 The study has suggested a novel method in calculating vowel means separately in the morphemic and non-morphemic context 4 The new method has detected language change patterns (fronting and /a/ raising) What happens to the vowels preceding /s/ in Venezuelan Spanish? Conclusion

References

[1] Aleman, Iris. Desdoblamiento fonológico en el espannol de Puerto Rico. Master’s thesis, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, PR, 1977. [2] Bentivoglio, Paola and Mercedes Sedano. 1993. Estudio sociolinguistico del habla de Caracas: el corpus de 1987. Universidad central de Venezuela. [3] Boersma, Paul. 2001. Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer. Glot International 5-9.341-345. [4] Figueroa, Neysa. 2000. An Acoustic and Perceptual Study of Vowels Preceding Deleted PostNuclear /s/ in Puerto Rican Spanish.” Hispanic Linguistics at the End of the Millennium. Ed. Hector Campos and Elena Herburger Somerville, MA:Cascadilla Press, 66-79. [5] Guy, Gregory. 1990. The sociolinguistic types of language change. Diachronica, 7.47-67. [6] Hammond, Robert. 1978. An experimental verication of the phonemic status of open and closed vowels in Carribean Spanish.” Corrientes actuales en la dialectologa del Caribe hispanico. Ed. Himberto Lopez Morales Univ. de Puerto Rico. 33-125. [7] Lipsky, John M. El españolde America. Madrid: Catedra, 1994. [8] Morales, Humberto Lopez. 1979. Desdoblamiento fonológicode /e a o/ en el españoldel Cuba.” Estudios ofrecidos a Emilio Alarcos Llorach. Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo, 153-165. [9] Thomas, Erik R. and Tyler Kendall. 2007. NORM: The vowel normalization and plotting suite. Online Resource: http://ncslaap.lib.ncsu.edu/tools/norm/