The Role of Bilingualism in Phonological Neutralization: Sibilant Mergers in the Case of
Basque-Spanish Contact
Dissertation
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Oihane Muxika Loitzate
Graduate Program in Spanish & Portuguese
The Ohio State University
2020
Dissertation Committee
Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza, Advisor
Terrell A. Morgan
Fernando Martínez-Gil
Copyrighted by
Oihane Muxika Loitzate
2020
2
ABSTRACT
This dissertation analyzes the production of Basque sibilants among bilingual speakers from Bizkaia. Traditionally, Basque has had three voiceless affricates that are different in their place of articulation. More precisely, affricates can have a lamino-alveolar, apico- alveolar, and prepalatal place of articulation and the graphemes used to represent them are
Loitzate 2017, Beristain 2018a). This dissertation analyzes the pronunciation of Basque sibilants in the merging variety of Basque spoken in Amorebieta-Etxano and it explores the effects of different factors on the merger, focusing on the effect of Basque-Spanish linguistic contact.
In order to explore Basque sibilants in detail, the data of 28 bilingual informants who were between 20 and 66 years old was analyzed acoustically. More precisely, informants’ production data was analyzed in an interview and a read-aloud task in Basque. The role of linguistic contact was explored by measuring informants’ degree of linguistic dominance through the Bilingual Language Profile Questionnaire (Birdsong et al. 2012)
ii and by comparing their production of sibilants in Basque and Spanish. In order to explore informants’ sibilants in Spanish, the production data from 24 bilingual informants who were between 21 and 74 years old was analyzed in an interview and a read-aloud task.
Informants’ data was analyzed acoustically by using the Center of Gravity (or CoG) of fricatives and of the fricative phase of affricates. Additionally, the duration of fricatives and affricates was measured. This dissertation carried out separate statistical analyses to determine the most important factors influencing the production of Basque sibilants on the one hand and Spanish sibilants on the other. The production data of 14 informants who completed all tasks in Basque and Spanish was used to explore the effects of language contact in more detail.
The results of the CoG showed that a higher degree of linguistic dominance in
Spanish accelerated the merger of Basque affricates on the one hand and of Basque fricatives on the other. Moreover, informants pronounced their Basque sibilants in the front of their oral cavity, which suggested that the Basque sibilants represented by the graphemes
With regards to Spanish sibilants, their place of articulation was more stable and it was not affected by informants’ BLP or age. The comparison of Basque and Spanish sibilants
iii showed that the majority of Spanish dominant speakers pronounced their Basque affricates with a more fronted place of articulation than their Spanish affricate and this pattern also occurred with their fricatives. Consequently, most informants did not use the same sibilants in Basque and Spanish, but rather they created separate categories for them
(as in Simonet 2010). Overall, this dissertation focused on the effects of Basque-Spanish linguistic contact and contributed to the analysis of the current state of the Basque sibilant merger. Moreover, it determined the effects of factors that had not been analyzed in detail previously, such as informants’ age or the type of task that they completed.
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DEDICATION
A mis padres, por estar conmigo siempre a pesar de la distancia.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I feel grateful for all the help and encouragement that I received from different people during my MA and PhD program at OSU, especially during the writing process of this dissertation. First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza, who supported me in all the different stages of my graduate studies. I really admire her teaching philosophy, her efforts to support all students, and her ability to create impactful research projects, and I feel honored to be her student and advisee. Muchas gracias,
Rebeka, por toda tu ayuda durante estos años.
I am also very thankful for all the help that I received from Dr. Terrell Morgan, who has taught me so much about pronunciation and the best ways to teach this to students. I would also like to thank Dr. Fernando Martínez-Gil for his support during my
PhD and for his helpful feedback in this project. A los tres, muchas gracias por todo vuestro apoyo en este proyecto, desde que era solamente una idea hasta que pude llevarlo a cabo.
I would also like to thank all the professors at the Department of Spanish and
Portuguese and other departments at OSU, who have encouraged me to carry out research projects in different areas. Special thanks to Dr. Anna Babel and Dr. Glenn Martínez, who guided me in research projects in the areas of linguistic landscapes and heritage languages, which I enjoyed greatly and I am hoping to develop more in the future.
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It is very important for me to thank all the informants in this dissertation for their time and contributions. This project would not have been possible without their help.
Eskerrik asko proiektu honetan parte hartu duzuen guztioi! Doktoretza tesi honetako datuak biltzea oso esperientzia polita izan da zuoi esker.
I was able to collect the data in this dissertation and receive feedback from other linguists and scholars thanks to the Mario Iglesias Award and the Graduate Student
Travel Support at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Arts and
Humanities Small Grant at OSU. I am thankful for the help that I received from OSU as well as the feedback that I received from linguists and researchers at the university and at conferences. All those comments helped me have a deeper understanding of linguistics in general and they allowed me to reflect on ways to improve this project. Special thanks goes to everyone who has very kindly offered to answer my questions or help me with data visualization and statistical analyses.
Por supuesto, me gustaría agradecer a mis amigos y compañeros todo su apoyo en este proceso. Cuando llegué a Columbus me di cuenta de que Lorena, Celia, Aintzane,
Fernando, Miguel, Laura, Elena, y John se referían a este grupo como su segunda familia. Pronto me hicieron sentir parte de esa gran familia, me apoyaron y me siguen apoyando cada día desde distintos lugares del mundo. Cada año se han unido a esa familia más y más personas, y estoy muy agradecida por toda la ayuda que he recibido de todas ellas: Mariona, Ernest, Palo, Kristen, Sebas, Melissa, Ane, Héctor, Lucía,
Anthony, Hugo, Luana, y muchos más. Me siento muy afortunada de ser vuestra compañera y amiga. Gracias también a todas las personas que me han animado desde
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España, en especial a Ainhoa por estar siempre disponible para charlar, mandarme fuerzas, y también por contestar a todas mis preguntas sobre sus intuiciones en euskera.
También me gustaría darle las gracias a Dann por ayudarme y animarme tanto durante estos años.
Finalmente, gracias a mis padres por hacer que este proceso de escritura fuera mucho más llevadero y por enviarme sus ánimos y fuerzas cada día. Eskerrik asko aita eta ama!
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VITA
2014...... B.A. in Modern Languages, University of Deusto
2016...... M.A. in Hispanic Linguistics, The Ohio State University
Publications
Muxika-Loitzate, Oihane. 2017. Sibilant Merger in the Variety of Basque Spoken in Amorebieta-Etxano. Proceedings of the Bilingualism in the Hispanic and Lusophone World. Online: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/2/4/25.
Fields of Study
Major field: Spanish and Portuguese
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...... II
DEDICATION ...... V
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... VI
VITA ...... IX
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... X
LIST OF TABLES ...... XIII
LIST OF FIGURES ...... XVII
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1. The sibilant merger in Basque ...... 1 1.2. The focus of this dissertation ...... 7 1.3. Organization of this dissertation ...... 9
CHAPTER 2. BACKGROUND LITERATURE ...... 11 2.1. Bilingualism in the Basque Country ...... 11 2.1.1. Varieties of Basque ...... 19 2.1.2. School System ...... 22 2.1.3. Bilingual Language Profile Questionnaire ...... 27 2.2. Fricatives and Affricates ...... 33 2.2.1. Affricates and Fricatives Cross-linguistically ...... 33 2.2.2. Affricates and Fricatives in Basque ...... 42 2.2.2.1. Previous studies on Basque sibilants ...... 46 x
2.2.3. Previous Studies on the Fricatives and Affricates of Spanish ...... 68 2.2.4. Acoustic Measurements ...... 76 2.3. Research Questions ...... 78
CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY ...... 80 3.1. Data collection in Basque ...... 80 3.2. Data collection in Spanish ...... 87 3.3. Data Analysis ...... 96 3.3.1. Acoustic Analysis ...... 96 3.3.2. Independent variables and statistical treatment ...... 104
CHAPTER 4. RESULTS ...... 111 4.1. Results for Basque ...... 111 4.1.1. Results for Basque affricates ...... 111 4.1.1.1. The CoG of Basque affricates ...... 111 4.1.1.2. The duration of Basque affricates ...... 124 4.1.1.3. The palatalized /t/ ...... 130 4.1.2. Results for Basque fricatives ...... 133 4.1.2.1. The CoG of Basque fricatives ...... 134 4.1.2.2. The duration of Basque fricatives ...... 151 4.1.2.3. The epenthetic fricative in Basque ...... 157 4.1.2.4. The effect of minimal pair status ...... 164 4.2. Results for Spanish ...... 168 4.2.1. The Spanish affricate ...... 168 4.2.1.1. The CoG of the Spanish affricate ...... 168 4.2.1.2. The duration of the Spanish affricate ...... 169 4.2.2. Results for the Spanish fricative ...... 172 4.2.2.1. The CoG of the Spanish fricative ...... 172 4.2.2.2. The duration of the Spanish fricative ...... 175 4.3. Comparison between Basque and Spanish sibilants ...... 179 4.3.1. Comparison of affricates ...... 182 4.3.2. Results for fricatives ...... 186
CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION ...... 192 5.1. Results for Basque affricates ...... 192 5.2. Results for Basque fricatives ...... 209
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5.3. Generational differences: conditioned palatalization and the epenthetic fricative ...... 223 5.4. The current status of the sibilant merger ...... 226 5.5. The sibilants of Spanish ...... 229 5.6. Comparison between Basque and Spanish sibilants ...... 231 5.7. The effects of language contact ...... 234
CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSIONS ...... 243 6.1. Main findings and contributions ...... 243 6.2. Limitations of this dissertation and future research ...... 250
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 253
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS IN BASQUE ...... 263
APPENDIX B: READING TASK IN BASQUE ...... 266
APPENDIX C. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS IN SPANISH ...... 274
APPENDIX D. READING TASK IN SPANISH ...... 278
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Population of the BAC who use Basque, Spanish, both or other languages at home (Eustat 2018a) ...... 13 Table 2: Classification of the population of Amorebieta-Etxano based on their knowledge of Basque and Spanish (Eustat 2018b) ...... 16 Table 3: Results for the COG of Mandarin affricates in Li & Gu (2015:1681) ...... 36 Table 4: Grapheme, IPA symbol, place of articulation, and examples of Basque affricates and fricatives ...... 43 Table 5: Results for the CoG values of the Basque affricates and fricatives presented in Hualde (2010:94) ...... 49 Table 6: Results for the CoG values of the Basque affricates and fricatives presented in Iglesias et al. (2016:13) ...... 50 Table 7: Results for the affricates clasiffied as “alveolars” in Western Bizkaian Basque in Urrutia et al. (1988:80-82) ...... 55 Table 8: Results for the affricates clasiffied as “palatals” in Western Bizkaian Basque in Urrutia et al. (1988:100-102) ...... 56 Table 9: Results for the affricates in Bizkaia presented in Gaminde et al. (2013:8-10) ... 59 Table 10: Results for the voiceless affricates for a female speaker from Lekeitio presented in Gandarias et al. (2014:16-17) ...... 61 Table 11: Results for the fricatives for a female speaker from Lekeitio presented in Gandarias et al. (2014:12-13) ...... 62 Table 12: Results for the sibilants in Lekeitio presented in Gandarias et al. (2014:18-19) ...... 63 Table 13: Results for the CoG values of the Basque fricatives presented in Muxika- Loitzate (2017:12) ...... 64 Table 14: Results for the CoG values of /͡ts̻ / and /s̺ / presented in Beristain (2018a:66-67) ...... 65 Table 15: Results for the duration of /͡ts̻ / and /s̺ / presented in Beristain (2018a:66-67) ... 66 Table 16: Results for the mean CoG presented in Jurado Noriega (2011:135) ...... 72 Table 17: Age group, gender, speaker ID, age, level of education, and BLP score of the informants who completed the tasks in Basque ...... 81 Table 18: Age groups, gender, speaker ID, age, level of education, and BLP score of the informants who completed the tasks in Spanish ...... 89 Table 19: Target words with the sounds of interest in Spanish ...... 93 Table 20: Results of the best fid model for the CoG of Basque affricates ...... 112 Table 21: Mean CoG and standard deviation for affricates among female and male speakers ...... 113 xiii
Table 22: Mean CoG and standard deviation for affricates in the interview and the reading task ...... 113 Table 23: Mean CoG and standard deviation for the three graphemes corresponding to affricates ...... 114 Table 24: Mean CoG and standard deviation for the three graphemes among the three age groups ...... 115 Table 25: Results of the best fit model for affricate duration ...... 125 Table 26: Mean total duration and standard deviation of affricates for the three age groups ...... 126 Table 27: Mean total duration and standard deviation of affricates in the interview and reading task...... 127 Table 28: Mean total duration and standard deviation of affricates according to preceding context...... 127 Table 29: Mean total duration and standard deviation for
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Table 49: Mean CoG and standard deviation for the epenthetic fricative and non- epenthetic
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Table 74: Mean CoG and standard deviation of Basque and Spanish affricates among female and male speakers ...... 182 Table 75: Mean CoG and standard deviation of Basque and Spanish affricates among female and male speakers ...... 187 Table 76: Comparison of the mean CoG in this dissertation, Hualde (2010), Iglesias et al. (2016), Gaminde et al. (2013), and Gandarias et al. (2014) ...... 195 Table 77: Mean CoG and standard deviation of
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Location of Amorebieta-Etxano (retrieved from Google Maps) ...... 12 Figure 2: Location of Amorebieta-Etxano (adapted from Google Maps) ...... 18 Figure 3: Screenshot of MRI pictures of speakers pronouncing Basque fricatives and affricates in Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2009:158)...... 48 Figure 4: Segmentation of the fricative in the word hazi ‘to grow’ as said by informant M4 in the reading task in Basque ...... 97 Figure 5: Segmentation of the fricative in the word seco ‘dry’ as said by informant F26 in the reading task in Spanish ...... 97 Figure 6: Segmentation of the affricate in the word utzi ‘to lend’ as said by informant M4 in the reading task in Basque ...... 98 Figure 7: Segmentation of the affricate in the word choque ‘bump’ as said by informant F26 in the reading task in Spanish ...... 99 Figure 8: Segmentation of the fricative in the phrase eman zidan soineko hau ‘gave me this dress’ as said by informant F2 in the reading task in Basque ...... 100 Figure 9: Segmentation of the fricative in the sentence bere jarreragatik zigor espediente bat dauka ‘she/ he has a disciplinary record because of her/ his attitude’ as said by informant M1 in the reading task in Basque ...... 101 Figure 10: Waveform, spectrogram, and textgrid of the word entzun ‘to hear’ ...... 101 Figure 11: Segmentation of the fricative in the word asko ‘a lot’ as said by informant F3 in the reading task ...... 102 Figure 12: Density plot of the affricates among age group A (18-34 years old) ...... 116 Figure 13: Density plot of the affricates for female speakers in age group A ...... 117 Figure 14: Density plot of the affricates for male speakers in age group A ...... 118 Figure 15: Density plot of the affricates among age group B (34-54 years old) ...... 119 Figure 16: Density plot of the affricates among age group C (+54 years old) ...... 120 Figure 17: Density plot of the affricates among Spanish dominant speakers ...... 121 Figure 18: Density plot of the affricates among Basque dominant speakers ...... 122 Figure 19: Density plot of the affricates among Basque dominant female speakers ...... 123 Figure 20: Density plot of the affricates among Basque dominant male speakers ...... 124 Figure 21: Plot and regression line for the duration of ...... 141 Figure 26: Plot and regression line of a subset of the data with
Figure 28: Scatter plots for in Spanish for informants who were in age group A in 2015 ...... 188 Figure 39: Mean CoG for in Spanish for informants who were in age group B in 2015 ...... 189 Figure 40: Mean CoG for in Spanish for informants M12, M13, F16, M15 ...... 190 Figure 41: Scatterplots and regression lines of the COG for
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Figure 53: Strip charts for the CoG of Basque and Spanish sibilants for informants M6, M12, and M15 ...... 240 Figure 54: Strip charts for the CoG of Basque and Spanish sibilants for informants M3, M5, and F16 ...... 241
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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The sibilant merger in Basque
This dissertation analyzes the pronunciation of affricates and fricatives among bilingual speakers of Basque and Spanish and it explores the possible role of linguistic contact on the sibilant merger. Traditionally, Basque has been described as having a sibilant inventory of three affricates and three fricatives. The three Basque affricates are voiceless and they have the following places of articulation: lamino-alveolar /͡ts̻ /, apico-alveolar
/͡ts̺ /, and prepalatal /͡tʃ/, which are represented by the graphemes , and
Ortiz de Urbina 2003:22, Gaminde et al. 2013:6, Iglesias et al. 2016:6). The Academy of the Basque Language, called Euskaltzaindia, recommends that speakers maintain the contrasts in the places of articulation of the three affricates and the three fricatives
(Euskaltzaindia 1998). According to Euskaltzaindia, pronouncing a contrast between lamino-alveolar and apico-alveolar sibilants in particular is essential because there are minimal pairs containing these sounds, such as atzo ‘yesterday’/ atso ‘elderly person’ and hesi ‘fence’/ hezi ‘to educate’ (Euskaltzaindia 21 Apr. 2020). However, there are speakers of different varieties of Basque who do not keep those contrasts but rather 1 merge their Basque sibilants to some extent (Urrutia et al. 1988, Jurado Noriega 2011,
Gaminde et al. 2013, Beristain 2018a). This dissertation analyzes a sibilant-merging variety of Basque and it explores the factors influencing the merger, particularly focusing on the role of Basque-Spanish linguistic contact.
Previous studies have analyzed the production of Basque sibilants in non-merging varieties using different methodologies, such as MRI images (see Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. 2009) and acoustic analysis (Hualde 2010, Iglesias et al. 2016). Iglesias et al. (2016) used several acoustic measurements to analyze Basque sibilants, including their spectral moments, acoustic energy, duration, and the transitions to vowels, and they found that the only acoustic measurements that could differentiate the three fricatives and the three affricates in Basque were the Center of Gravity (CoG) and the standard deviation
(Iglesias et al. 2016:16). The CoG is an acoustic cue that helps to determine the place of articulation of Basque sibilants, as they are more fronted when their CoG is higher whereas their place of articulation is farther back when the CoG is lower. Previous studies support the effectiveness of this acoustic cue to differentiate Basque sibilants as they have found that the most fronted Basque sibilants (
CoG, whereas the sibilants that are produced farther back in the oral cavity (
is in between that for
Additionally, the duration of fricatives and affricates is also measured.
There are previous studies that have documented the merger in the place of
2 articulation of Basque sibilants (Urrutia et al. 1988, Jurado Noriega 2011, Gaminde et al.
2013, Gandarias et al. 2014, Muxika-Loitzate 2017, and Beristain 2018a). In those studies, the CoG is used as an acoustic measurement to explore the place of articulation of Basque sibilants and to determine whether speakers merge their sibilants or not. In
Bizkaian Basque,
Likewise, are merged into a single fricative in Bizkaian Basque and speakers tend to keep a two-way contrast between the places of articulation of the merged fricative and
(2018a) analyzed the effects of informants’ origin and L1 on the production of Basque fricatives and they found that the merger is at a more advanced state among speakers whose L1 is Spanish than among speakers whose L1 is Basque. Likewise, Muxika-
Loitzate (2017) analyzed the effects of language dominance on the merger and found that informants who were dominant in Basque had a two-way contrast among fricatives whereas informants who were dominant in Spanish had a total merger.
Previous studies have contributed to the description of Basque sibilants because they have provided guidance on how to analyze fricatives and affricates and they have found the acoustic cue that is most appropriate to measure their places of articulation.
3
Moreover, previous studies have explored the merger of sibilants and have determined that informants’ L1 and linguistic dominance has an effect on it. The different geographical locations examined in previous analyses have also provided a deeper understanding of the current state of the merger. However, there are still questions regarding the production of Basque sibilants that remain unanswered. More precisely, it is unclear whether informants’ age or the types of experimental tasks that they need to complete have an effect on the sibilant production. With regards to age, previous studies have suggested that the merger is at a more advanced stage among younger speakers than among older speakers (Hualde 2010, Gaminde 2010), but the effect of age on the Basque sibilant merger needs to be analyzed in more detail. The first studies that analyzed
Basque sibilants acoustically included the production data of speakers of different ages
(Urrutia et al. 1988). However, recent studies have focused on data from younger informants only. Informants’ age range was 20-28 in Gaminde et al. (2013), 21-33 in
Gandarias et al. (2014), 20-33 in Muxika-Loitzate (2017), and 18-45 in Beristain (2018a).
Moreover, the effects of the type of task on informants’ production of sibilants is also unclear. Previous studies have analyzed data from interviews (Beristain 2018a), reading tasks containing sentences (Muxika-Loitzate 2017), pronunciation of words in isolation (Gandarias et al. 2014) and pronunciation of nonce words (Iglesias et al. 2016).
However, the question of whether informants change their production across tasks depending on their awareness of their pronunciation has not been explored yet.
Another factor that has not been analyzed in a standardized manner is the effect of linguistic dominance on the Basque sibilant production. More precisely, some of the
4 previous studies have relied on informants’ place of origin, mother tongue and their parents’ mother tongue to determine informants’ linguistic dominance (Gaminde et al.
2013, Jurado Noriega 2011), whereas others have used questionnaires (Muxika-Loitzate
2017, Beristain 2018a). That means that the factors considered to determine informants’ linguistic dominance have differed considerably from one study to the other. Moreover, all the previous studies mentioned above have considered language dominance to be categorical and they have classified informants as being dominant in either Basque or
Spanish. This dissertation builds on previous studies on the effects of linguistic dominance on the merger and uses the Bilingual Language Profile (or BLP)
Questionnaire (Birdsong et al. 2012) as a way to measure informants’ degree of dominance in Basque and Spanish in a continuous manner. The BLP Questionnaire provides a numeric score that classifies each informant in a continuum of linguistic dominance and it contributes to the replicability of this dissertation as further studies could measure informants’ linguistic dominance following the same standardized methodology.
Analyzing the production of Basque sibilants is of interest because it allows us to acquire a deeper understanding of bilingual speakers’ sound repertoires. It gives us the opportunity to explore whether Basque-Spanish linguistic contact has an effect on speakers’ pronunciation of sibilants and it allows us to know more about the strategies that bilingual speakers use when pronouncing words in one of their languages. Moreover, studying the production of sibilants in a merging variety of Basque gives us a more clear idea of the current status of the merger in the Basque territory. Finally, the analysis of the
5 sibilant production, especially in merging varieties, can be helpful to instructors of
Basque so that they know their students’ sibilant repertoires and they can create pronunciation lessons accordingly.
More generally, this dissertation contributes to the study of phonological mergers among bilingual speakers of different languages. First of all, it provides an example of data collection and summarizes the steps followed in the acoustic and statistical analyses.
Moreover, it presents a manner to determine whether linguistic contact has an effect on the phonological merger or not. It is important to remember here that there are certain sound changes that can occur as a consequence of language internal motivations and not due to linguistic contact (Thomason 2006:7). In this dissertation, the effects of linguistic contact are analyzed by measuring informants’ degree of linguistic dominance and by exploring whether it has an effect on the phonological merger. The analysis across speakers with different degrees of dominance in Basque and Spanish allows us to determine if linguistic contact triggers or accelerates the sibilant merger or not.
According to Thomason (2001), “any linguistic change that would have been less likely to occur outside a particular contact situation is due at least in part to language contact”
(2001:62). Moreover, the effects of linguistic contact are analyzed in more detail by comparing bilingual speakers’ production in their two languages. This means that bilingual speakers’ data is not compared to that of monolingual speakers of Spanish, which avoids presenting monolingual speakers as “normative language users” (Mack
2003:311). For that reason, this dissertation adopts the “Shared-Separate Approach”
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(Mack 2003:321) to determine if speakers use the same or different sounds in their two languages.
1.2. The focus of this dissertation
This dissertation builds on previous studies and it explores the production of
Basque sibilants are influenced by the Basque-Spanish linguistic contact or not. The effects of Basque-Spanish linguistic contact in the merger are analyzed by measuring informants’ degree of linguistic dominance through the BLP Questionnaire, and by comparing informants’ sibilants in Basque to their sibilants
Informants completed an interview, a read-aloud task, and a picture description task, although only the interview and the read-aloud task are analyzed in this dissertation given time constraints.
Previous studies have shown that the merger of Basque sibilants is not a new phenomenon and it has been attested in texts from the 17th century (Michelena 1961:282).
However, it is important to analyze the current status of the sibilant merger and its 7 expansion, and to explore the effects of the Basque-Spanish contact in those sounds nowadays. The location of this dissertation is the town of Amorebieta-Etxano, which is located between the city of Bilbo1 and the town of Gernika. These two places differ considerably with regards to their inhabitants’ use of Basque and Spanish, as Basque is widely spoken in Gernika, whereas that is not the case in Bilbo (Eustat 2016). Moreover, the merger is described as being completed in Bilbo whereas the complete merger is widespread only among younger speakers who were born after the 1980s in Gernika
(Hualde 2010, Gaminde 2010). Analyzing the sibilants of Amorebieta-Etxano sheds light into the current expansion of the merger and it allows to test whether Basque-Spanish contact and informants’ age have an effect on it.
This dissertation analyzes the production of Basque and Spanish sibilants acoustically using Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2017). A total amount of 10,420 tokens was segmented for the purposes of this dissertation and 10038 of them were included in the statistical analyses, as I explain in chapter 3. A script was used to automatically extract the acoustic values from the segmented audio files2. The acoustic measurement used to determine the place of articulation of Basque sibilants was the CoG (as in Hualde
2010, Iglesias et al. 2016, Gaminde et al. 2013, Gandarias et al. 2014, Muxika-Loitzate
2017, and Beristain 2018a) and it was also the acoustic measurement used to compare their place of articulation to that of Spanish sibilants (as in Jurado Noriega 2011).
1 The names Bilbo and Gernika are translated as Bilbao and Guernica in Spanish. In this dissertation I use the Basque names of the provinces, cities, and villages in the Basque Autonomous Community to keep consistency. 2 I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza for having created the script to extract the acoustic values from the audio files. 8
Additionally, this dissertation measured the duration of the stop and fricative phases of affricates and their total duration (as in Gandarias et al. 2014) as well as the duration of fricatives (as in Iglesias et al. 2016). Section 1.3 presents the organization of this dissertation.
1.3. Organization of this dissertation
After this introductory chapter, chapter 2 presents some relevant background literature and summarizes previous studies on Basque-Spanish bilingualism and on sibilants.
Section 2.1 contextualizes the linguistic situation of Amorebieta-Etxano in the broader context of the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC). More precisely, it presents the percentages of Basque and Spanish speakers in the BAC, it summarizes the features of the variety of Basque spoken in Amorebieta-Etxano, and it gives an overview of the current role of Basque in schooling. Section 2.1 also presents the BLP Questionnaire as an alternative to previous classifications of speakers based on their knowledge of Basque and Spanish. Section 2.2 of the dissertation focuses on sibilants and summarizes previous studies that have conducted acoustic analyses on sibilants in different languages, including studies that have analyzed the acoustic properties of sibilants in Basque and
Spanish. The end on section 2.2 builds on previous studies and summarizes the acoustic measurements used in this dissertation. The research questions are presented in section
2.3 at the end of chapter 2.
Chapter 3 explains the methodology that I followed to answer the research questions in this dissertation. Sections 3.1 and 3.2 contain information about how the data in Basque and Spanish was collected and section 3.3 explains how it was analyzed 9 acoustically. The end of this chapter provides a summary of the statistical analyses carried out in this dissertation.
Chapter 4 presents the results obtained for Basque affricates and fricatives in section 4.1 and for Spanish affricates and fricatives in section 4.2. Section 4.3 compares the results of the 14 informants who completed all tasks in Basque and Spanish using descriptive statistics. Chapter 5 interprets the results and discusses their implications by focusing mainly on generational differences, the current status of the merger and the effect of language contact. Chapter 6 summarizes the main findings and contributions of the dissertation and proposes the next steps that further studies on the topic could follow to address the questions that remain unanswered.
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CHAPTER 2. BACKGROUND LITERATURE
2.1. Bilingualism in the Basque Country
The Basque Country (Euskal Herria in Basque) is a territory in northern Spain and southern France and it is divided into seven provinces that belong to different administrative regions: Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, and Araba3 belong to the Basque Autonomous
Community (BAC), Nafarroa belongs to the Foral Community of Nafarroa, and Lapurdi,
Nafarroa Beherea, and Zuberoa belong to the Department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques
(Cenoz & Perales 2001:91). Together with Spanish, Basque has been a co-official language in the BAC since 1979 and it is widely used in education, media and administration. It has a “more restricted official status” in the Foral Community of
Nafarroa (Hualde & Zuazo 2007:1), where it is only co-official in the northern area that has more speakers of Basque. However, Basque does not have the status of co-official language in any of the three provinces of the Department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques in
France (Hualde & Zuazo 2007:1).
3 It should be noted here that the names of the three provinces of the BAC are presented in different manners in articles and books that are written in English. Some authors present both the Basque names (Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Araba) and Spanish names (Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, Álava) of the three provinces in their work (see Hualde 2010:290). Other authors use the terms Guipúzcoa and Álava in Spanish and the term Biscay in English to refer to the province of Bizkaia (Garmendia & Agote 1997:99). As explained in chapter 1, this dissertation refers to the provinces, cities, and villages in the BAC using their Basque names. 11
For this section I will be focusing mainly on data from the BAC, given that the focus of this dissertation is the town of Amorebieta-Etxano, which is located in the province of Bizkaia. Figure 1 shows the location of Amorebieta-Etxano (retrieved from
Google Maps).
Figure 1: Location of Amorebieta-Etxano (retrieved from Google Maps)
According to the Basque Institute of Statistics called Eustat (2019b), the BAC had a population of 2,188,017 inhabitants in 2019 and 1,142,853 of them lived in Bizkaia, whereas 717,197 lived in Gipuzkoa, and 327,967 lived in Araba. With regards to the use of Basque, the most recent data available is from 2016. According to Eustat, that year there were 1,287,839 inhabitants in the BAC who were able to understand the language
12 or use it to some extent, although only a small percentage of those speakers used Basque at home. More specifically, 9.01% of the inhabitants of Bizkaia (102,791 people) reported that they spoke Basque at home (Eustat 2018a). This percentage was higher in the province of Gipuzkoa, where 27.48% of the population (195,677 people) reported that they used Basque at home (Eustat 2018a). Araba was the province with the lowest percentage of usage of the three provinces, since only 2.83% of the population (9,168 people) reported that they spoke Basque at home (Eustat 2018a). It should be noted here that there are also 222,498 speakers at the BAC who use both Basque and Spanish at home. In the case of Bizkaia, there are 100,369 inhabitants who use both languages at home. Compared to Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa has a similar number of speakers who use both languages at home, 100,651 speakers. Finally, Araba has 21,478 speakers who use both
Basque and Spanish at home. Table 1 shows the number of people per province according to the language that they used at home in 2016.
Home language (number of people) Basque Spanish Both Other BAC 307,636 1,583,472 222,498 62,971 Bizkaia 102,791 910,127 100,369 27,282 Gipuzkoa 195,677 394,274 100,651 21,517 Araba 9,168 279,071 21,478 14,172 Table 1: Population of the BAC who use Basque, Spanish, both or other languages at home (Eustat 2018a)
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Eustat also offers statistics on the use of Basque and Spanish based on age and gender differences. The latest available data regarding age differences is from 2016 and it shows that older generations of bilinguals spoke Basque more frequently than younger generations (Eustat 2017)4. Moreover, there were more female speakers than male speakers who used Basque at home. More precisely, there were 159,023 female speakers and 148,613 male speakers who used Basque at home in the BAC (Eustat 2018e). This may be a reflection of the population of the BAC, as there is a higher number of women than men. With regards to the contexts where speakers use Basque, the latest data from
2016 shows that there were more male speakers than female speakers who principally used Basque in local stores, banks, health centers, and municipal services, whereas there were more female Basque speakers who principally used Basque to communicate with friends and work colleagues (Eustat 2018d).
Eustat also analyzes the demographic data and the use of Basque in the different towns and municipalities of the BAC. One of the towns that it analyzes is Amorebieta-
Etxano. In 2019, Amorebieta-Etxano had a population of 19,119 inhabitants and its population density was 325.30/sq km (Eustat 2019a). There were 3,824 inhabitants who were younger than 20 years old, 11,484 inhabitants who were between 20 and 64 years old, and 3,811 inhabitants who were older than 64 years old. With regards to employment, 10,998 inhabitants were employed in 2018, while the percentage of unemployed inhabitants was 8.9% (Eustat 2019a). Eustat also collects data about the
4 The census data in Eustat is published a year after it is collected and this explains why there is a mismatch between the year of the census and the year of publication. When the publication date of the website was not available, I included the date when the materials were accessed, as suggested in the guide of Walker & Taylor (1998). 14 level of education of inhabitants who are 10 years old or older (2018c). In 2018,
Amorebieta-Etxano had 66 illiterate inhabitants (0.39% of the population) and 428 inhabitants who had not completed primary school (2.53% of the population). There were
5,480 inhabitants who had primary school as their highest level of education (32.35% of the population), and 3,511 inhabitants who had secondary school as their highest level of education (20.73% of the population). Moreover, there were 3,515 inhabitants who had studied a vocational or professional degree (20.75% of the population), and 1,206 inhabitants whose highest level of education was a Bachelor’s Degree or a university
Degree (7.12% of the population). Finally, there were 2,732 inhabitants who had completed an engineering degree, a master’s degree or a PhD (16.13% of the population).
With regards to their income, Eustat explains that inhabitants in Amorebieta-Etxano had an average personal income of 17,836€ in 2018 (2019a). As for the economical activity of the town, in 2016 its basis was the tertiary or service sector, whereas the second most important factor was the secondary or the manufacturing sector and the primary sector was very limited (Eustat 2019a).
Another aspect that Eustat analyzes is the use of languages in Amorebieta-Etxano.
In 2016, there were 18,092 inhabitants in Amorebieta-Etxano who were older than 2 years old and 4,749 of them were monolingual speakers of Spanish (or “erdaldunes”) whereas the rest of the inhabitants were able to understand Basque and some of them were able to speak it to some extent (2018b). More precisely, Eustat (2018b) claims that there were 10,160 inhabitants who were “euskaldunes”; that is, inhabitants who are able to understand Basque and speak it well. Eustat (2018b) offers a more accurate
15 classification and determines that 8,830 of those “euskaldunes” were literate, as they could read and write well in Basque, whereas 372 of them were not literate in the language. Moreover, Eustat (2018b) describes 958 of the “euskaldunes” as “partially literate” because they had difficulties reading and writing in Basque. There are also individuals who understand Basque and who may not be able to speak it or who speak it with difficulty, and Eustat (2018b) uses the term “quasi-euskaldunes” to refer to them
(Eustat 10 Dec. 2019). In 2016, there were 2,151 inhabitants in Amorebieta-Etxano who were considered “quasi-euskaldunes” and they were literate in the language, whereas there were 501 “quasi-euskaldunes” who were not literate in it. Finally, there were 531 inhabitants who were described as “passive quasi-euskaldunes” because they were able to understand Basque but they did not speak it at all. Table 3 shows the classification of the population of Amorebieta-Etxano based on their knowledge of Basque and Spanish
(Eustat 2018b).
Population of Amorebieta-Etxano according to the census of 2016 (Eustat 2018b) “Euskaldunes”: Inhabitants who “Quasi-euskaldunes”: Inhabitants “Erdaldunes”: understand Basque and speak it who understand Basque and Inhabitants well (10,160 people) speak it with difficulty or cannot who are speak it (3,183 people) monolingual Literate Partially Non- Literate Non- Passive speakers of literate literate literate Spanish 8,830 958 372 2,151 501 531 4,749 Table 2: Classification of the population of Amorebieta-Etxano based on their knowledge of Basque and Spanish (Eustat 2018b)
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It should be noted here that 10.58% of the population of Amorebieta-Etxano was born in a country other than Spain (Eustat 2019a) and that it is possible to hear other languages besides Spanish and Basque in the streets of Amorebieta-Etxano. More precisely, Soziolinguistika Klusterra (2014) measured the use of the different languages in the streets of Amorebieta-Etxano in 2013 by observing 1,883 conversations that had a total of 5,108 interlocutors and they found that 73.6% of the conversations were in
Spanish, 23% were in Basque, and 3.4% of the conversations were in a different language. This may suggest that Spanish is the dominant language in the streets of
Amorebieta-Etxano, even though the majority of the population can communicate in
Basque. However, Soziolinguistika Klusterra (2014) explains that the use of Basque is higher than the “expected use of Basque”, which they calculate using the formula of
Alvarez Enparantza “Txillardegi” (2002, cited in Soziolinguistika Klusterra: 2014:17).
Based on Txillardegi’s calculation, the expected use of Basque in Amorebieta-Etxano is
21.5%, which is lower than the actual use of Basque in the streets of Amorebieta-Etxano
(23%). Soziolinguistika Klusterra explains that the percentage of expected use of Basque in Amorebieta-Etxano resembles the percentages of other villages and that it is lower than the real use of Basque because Basque speakers group together and create active interrelations with each other (2014:20). For that reason, Basque speakers have fewer interactions with non-Basque speakers in their everyday lives in Amorebieta-Etxano and they use Basque more often than expected.
As mentioned in the introduction, the study of Basque and its sounds in
Amorebieta-Etxano is of interest because it is located between Bilbo and Gernika, two
17 locations where the use of Basque and Spanish is very different. More precisely, Basque is widely spoken in Gernika, whereas that is not the case in Bilbo. According to Eustat
(2016), Gernika had a population of 16,664 inhabitants in 2016 and 8,425 of them had
Basque as their mother tongue (50.56% of the population). However, in the same year
Bilbo had a population of 343,072 inhabitants and only 17,554 had Basque as their mother tongue (5.12% of the population). Consequently, studying the variety of Basque spoken in Amorebieta-Etxano can help us know whether its sound inventory resembles more that of Bilbo, a Spanish dominant location, or that of Gernika, a Basque dominant location. The following map shows the location of Gernika and Bilbo in a green box and the location of Amorebieta-Etxano in a red box (Google Maps).
Figure 2: Location of Amorebieta-Etxano (adapted from Google Maps)
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The following subsection explains the classification of Basque dialects through history and how the variety of Basque spoken in Amorebieta-Etxano has been classified.
2.1.1. Varieties of Basque
Oihenart (1656) was the first person who created a classification of the varieties of
Basque and he linked them to ancient tribes that inhabited the northern part of the Iberian
Peninsula before the arrival of the Romans (Zuazo 2019, Euskara Institutua 6 Jan. 2020).
Based on Oihenart’s classification, the variety of Basque spoken in the region of
Amorebieta-Etxano would belong to the Autrigones, an ancient tribe who lived in
Bizkaia. However, Oihenart’s classification has been criticized for disregarding differences between the varieties of Basque, such as those from Zuberoa, Lapurdi, and
Nafarroa Beherea, and for grouping them together (Zuazo 2019:31). Moreover, there are authors who claim that the dialects of Basque originated much later in time, in the Middle
Ages (Zuazo 2019, Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003).
The second person who classified the varieties of Basque was Larramendi
(1729:12), who claimed that there were three main varieties of Basque: the variety of
Bizkaia, the variety of Gipuzkoa, and the variety of Nafarroa and Lapurdi (Zuazo 2019,
Euskara Institutua 6 Jan. 2020). According to Larramendi’s classification (1729), the variety of Basque of the region that is nowadays Amorebieta-Etxano would belong to the variety of Bizkaia. However, Larramendi (1729) acknowledged that there were differences in the Basque spoken by inhabitants of different regions that he had grouped as a single dialect, such as the Basque spoken in Bizkaia and Araba (Euskara Institutua 6
Jan. 2020). 19
In 1863, Luis Lucien Bonaparte overcame the limitations of previous dialectological descriptions and created the first complete map of Basque dialects
(Fonatari 6 Jan. 2020). Bonaparte (1863) claimed that Bizkaian Basque was divided into three subdialects: the Western, the Eastern, and the Gipuzkoan subdialects. The Western subdialect is further divided into seven varieties of Basque: Gernika, Bermeo, Plentzia,
Arratia, Orozko, Arriagorriaga, and Otxandio. Based on this classification, the variety of
Basque spoken in the area of Amorebieta-Etxano is a Western dialect of Basque spoken in Bizkaia (Fonatari 6 Jan. 2020). More precisely, Bonaparte (1863) classified it as belonging to the same variety of Basque as Gernika. However, the variety of Basque spoken in Bilbo belonged to the variety of Basque from Arrigorriaga and it constituted a separate variety in Western Bizkaia. It should be noted here that Bonaparte’s classification did not include the town of Amorebieta-Etxano as we know it today, but it included the locations of “Zornoza, Amorebieta, and Echano” which were very close to each other. The reason for including three names instead of the current name of
Amorebieta-Etxano in the map is that the current town is an evolution of an area called
Zornotza, which was constituted by the administrative areas of Etxano, Amorebieta,
Ibarruri, and Gorozika (Amorebieta-Etxanoko Udala 27 Dec. 2019). Amorebieta and
Etxano merged into a single town in 1951 and for that reason it was not included as a single town in the map that Bonaparte created in 1863. Despite being depicted as different locations in Bonaparte’s map, all four administrative regions (Etxano,
Amorebieta, Ibarruri, and Gorozika) were classified as belonging to the same variety of
Basque.
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The dialectological classification of Basque that we use nowadays is based on
Bonaparte’s classification (1863), although it has gone through several changes. One of the authors who expands on Bonaparte’s classification and modifies it to reflect the current reality of the Basque language is Zuazo (2013). More precisely, Zuazo (2013) claims that there are currently fewer varieties of Basque than in Bonaparte’s classification. Zuazo (2019) explains that the reason for having fewer varieties of Basque than before is that some dialects described by Bonaparte disappeared with the decline of
Basque during the 20th century, whereas other dialects merged together, especially after the creation of the standard variety of Basque called euskara batua or ‘Unified Basque’
(Zuazo 1995:22). As this standard variety was introduced into education and other spaces where it was not present before, there were vernacular varieties of Basque that merged with it (Zuazo 2019). According to Zuazo’s latest classification, Amorebieta-Etxano belongs to the Western dialect of Basque and it constitutes an “intermediate variety” of
Basque (Zuazo 2019:18) as it combines features from the Western and the Eastern sub- dialects (Zuazo 2013). Moreover, Zuazo (2019) classifies the variety of Amorebieta-
Etxano as the same variety of Basque spoken in Gernika, as Bonaparte did in 1863, but he also claims that it has features of other dialects, like the Western sub-dialect spoken in the area of Bilbo. The fact that the inhabitants of Amorebieta-Etxano are speakers of an
“intermediate variety” that combines features of several sub-dialects of Basque (Zuazo
2019:18) makes it a location of interest for this dissertation. Moreover, besides speaking their vernacular variety of Basque, many inhabitants of Amorebieta-Etxano are nowadays able to communicate in standard Basque too, as this is the most widespread written
21 variety in education and administration in the BAC. The following section explains the creation of standard Basque and its integration in education in more detail.
2.1.2. School System
Basque has not always been as widespread in education, media and administration as it is nowadays in the BAC and the Foral Community of Nafarroa. The use of Basque decreased in Araba and the Foral Community of Nafarroa in the 18th and 19th centuries
(Cenoz & Perales 2001:91). Moreover, it was forbidden during Franco’s dictatorship, as it happened with other languages in Spain except for Spanish (Cenoz 1998). The use of
Basque also decreased in the 1960s and 1970s due to the development of industry in the
Basque Country, since many people who could not speak Basque migrated from other parts of Spain to work in the industry (Cenoz 1998). During the 1960s, a movement for the revitalization of Basque started in the industrialized areas and spread through the entire Basque Country (Zuazo 1995:21). This movement made it possible to open the cooperative Basque-medium schools called “Ikastolak” (Cenoz 1998:176). According to
Cenoz (1998), the Ikastolak were not officially recognized at first, but they were finally recognized when they had a high number of students enrolled in them (1998:176).
According to Delgado (2014), it was not only the number of students that allowed the
Ikastolak to succeed during Franco’s regime, but it was also the fact that cooperative forms of organization were integrated into the legislation at that time. More specifically, the emergence of the Ikastolak took place in a moment when the state allowed cooperatives since it could not cover the costs of public schools (2014:677). Zuazo
22
(1995) explains that the emergence of the Ikastolak went hand in hand with the creation of an educational program to teach Basque to adults (1995:21).
As Basque was introduced into education, instructors had to face the question of which variety of Basque they were going to teach. Likewise, Basque writers needed to decide which variety of Basque they were going to use in their texts. In 1968, the
Academy of the Basque Language (Euskaltzaindia) created the euskara batua (Zuazo
1995), the standard variety of Basque. In this dissertation I will use the term standard
Basque to refer to euskara batua. Standard Basque was created as a manner to communicate in a written form, but the academy also created a set of rules for pronunciation decades later (Hualde & Zuazo 2007:155).
After Franco’s death in 1975, there were changes in the society and the legislation that facilitated the revitalization of Basque. First of all, the democratic constitution approved in 1978 stated that the different languages of Spain needed to be respected and protected (Klee & Lynch 2009:33). This allowed Basque to become a co-official language in part of the territory of the Basque Country and it supported the development of three models of schooling in the BAC that included Basque and Spanish as mandatory subjects (Cenoz 1998). The three models of schooling are the following (Weber &
Horner 2012:114, Cenoz 1998:177):
• Model A: Spanish is the medium of instruction and there is a Basque as a second
language course that is taught 4-5 hours per week.
• Model B: Both Spanish and Basque are the medium of instruction.
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• Model D: Basque is the medium of instruction and there is a Spanish as a second
language course taught 4-5 hours per week.
The introduction of Basque in education and the development of the three models of schooling allowed people to learn the language. Nowadays, the three models of schooling still remain in the BAC, although English has also been included in the curriculum (Weber & Horner 2012:114). The statistics on enrollment in these models show that many parents enroll their children in models that have Basque as the medium of instruction (Eustat 2018e). More specifically, the enrollment in Model D is higher than the enrollment in the other two models. For instance, Eustat (11 Jan. 2020) shows that the majority of non-university students in the BAC enrolled in Model D during the academic course of 2016-2017. The percentage of Model D students was the highest in primary school (75.3%), whereas this percentage was lower in secondary school (65.8%). The second most common model in the BAC was the Model B, as 20.3% of children in primary school were enrolled in that model, and 24.9% of the students in secondary school were enrolled in it. The percentage of students enrolled in Models D and B decreased in postsecondary education, where the majority of students (52.4%) were enrolled in Model A.
With regards to Amorebieta-Etxano, there are currently three public schools for children aged 0-2 years old, 2-6 years old, and 6-12 years old. There are also two private schools for ages 0-16 and 0-18, two Ikastolak for ages 2-18 and 0-16, and a public high school for the age range 12-18. Amorebieta-Etxano also has a public educational center for adults and a center for vocational studies (Amorebieta-Etxanoko Udala 7 Jan 2020).
24
These educational centers reflect the reality of the BAC described above, where the enrollment in Model D is higher, especially at the primary and secondary school levels.
The enrollment in models where Spanish is more present increases in post-secondary education. As a consequence, many inhabitants of Amorebieta-Etxano grow up being exposed to mainly Basque in their classes at school and they become familiar with standard Basque. According to Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003), in areas where younger speakers do not use Basque much in society or where their vernacular variety is similar to standard Basque, learners create a continuum and use a more standard or a more vernacular variety depending on the context (2003:5). Moreover, in areas that are more
Spanish dominant, there are speakers who use standard Basque and do not speak a vernacular variety (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003).
The linguistic situation is different among older generations of speakers, as many of them were not able to pursue their studies in Basque. Those adults are sometimes unable to speak Basque, or they have different levels of proficiency in their vernacular varieties, although they may be unable to use standard Basque. In the case of
Amorebieta-Etxano, those adults are able to learn Basque or standard Basque in three educational institutions that offer Basque courses to students who are older than 15 years old (Amorebieta-Etxanoko Udala 11 Jan. 2020). Some of the courses are focused on preparing students to acquire the EGA or HABE language certificates in Basque, whereas other courses are focused on teaching Basque to groups of elderly people, groups of immigrants, or groups of parents.
25
It is important to highlight that there are differences between standard Basque and the vernacular variety of Amorebieta-Etxano. According to Zuazo (2017, 2019), there are certain features that are common in the Western variety of Basque but different from standard Basque. Some of those features can be found below (2019: 61-62).
1) The use of the high vowel [u] in the diminutive suffix –txu instead of the standard
suffix–txo, which can also express affection, as in the word amatxu ‘mom’,
instead of the standard form amatxo.
2) The insertion of a nasal consonant between the vowels –io in the root of the
synthetic forms of the verb esan ‘to say’, as in the form diñot ‘I say’, instead of
the standard form diot.
3) The addition of –ten to the –tu/-du ending of verbs in their basic form to create the
participle, such as konponduten ‘fixing’, instead of konpontzen in standard
Basque.
4) The use of the diphthong [ew], that corresponds to the diphthong [aw] in many
words in standard Basque, such as g[ew]za ‘thing’, instead of gauza in standard
Basque. According to Zuazo (2019:62), in forms of the verb eduki ‘to have’ the
diphthong [ew] has been simplified and lost the glide, such as in dekot ‘I have’,
instead of the standard daukat.
5) The use of the grapheme
pluralizing the form neban ‘I had it’ as nebazan ‘I had them’, which would be
nituen in standard Basque. According to Zuazo (2019), in some cases the
26
grapheme
direz ‘they are’, given that dire/ dira is already referring to the plural.
6) The realization of [a] instead of the standard [e] when followed by a trill, in words
such as barri ‘new’, instead of berri in standard Basque.
All these features mentioned above are common in the Western variety of Basque and they also occur in the vernacular variety of Basque spoken in Amorebieta-Etxano.
With regards to sibilants, the sounds of interest in this dissertation, Zuazo (2017) mentions that the mergers of
) and
In order to better understand informants’ linguistic background and their uses of the vernacular and standard Basque, this dissertation collects data about their linguistic background with the Bilingual Language Profile (or BLP) Questionnaire (Birdsong et al.
2012, Gertken et al. 2014).
2.1.3. Bilingual Language Profile Questionnaire
The BLP Questionnaire has 19 multiple-choice questions that retrieve information on the following areas: language history, use, proficiency, and attitudes (Birdsong et al. 2012).
Informants need to answer the questions using scalar responses and it takes approximately ten minutes to complete (Gertken et al. 2014:217). Informants can complete the BLP Questionnaire online or in paper-and-pencil (Birdsong et al. 2012) and this determines the manner in which BLP Questionnaires are scored. Online 27 questionnaires are self-scored in a Google Docs spreadsheet whereas paper-and-pencil questionnaires need to be manually scored by multiplying the score of each BLP component by the factors indicated in the BLP Questionnaire website (Birdsong et al.
2012). The four BLP components (language history, use, proficiency, and attitudes) are equally weighted (Gertken et al. 2014:217) and speakers receive a score for each component in each of the two languages that they speak. The scores of the four sections are added for each language. The global BLP score is obtained by subtracting the total score of one language from the other and it can go from -218 to +218 (Birdsong et al.
2012). The score that each informant gets determines whether they are more or less dominant in two given languages or if they are close to being “balanced bilinguals”
(Birdsong et al. 2012).
Gertken et al. (2014:217) compares the BLP Questionnaire to other questionnaires: the Language Experience And Proficiency or LEAP-Questionnaire
(Marian et al. 2007), the Bilingual Dominance Scale or BDS (Dunn & Tree 2009) and the
Self-Report Classification Tool or SRCT (Lim et al. 2008). Out of the four questionnaires, the BLP Questionnaire is the only one that can be administered online and that offers the possibility to be self-scored (Gertken et al. 2014:217). Moreover it is the only questionnaire that has all scalar responses whereas the rest of the questionnaires have only some scalar responses or they do not have any (Gertken et al. 2014:217). With regards to its completion time, the BLP can be completed in less than 10 minutes, which is a shorter period of time than the LEAP-Questionnaire, which takes 15-25 minutes, but a longer period of time than the BDS and the SRCT, which take approximately 5 minutes
28 to complete (Gertken et al. 2014:217). Finally, only the BLP Questionnaire and the BDS provide a continuous score (Gertken et al. 2014:217) that allows the researcher to treat language dominance in a gradient manner.
According to Gertken et al. (2014), some of the advantages of the BLP
Questionnaire are that it can be accessed for free, it is easy to use and it is adaptable
(2014:221). It has been translated to fit different bilingual speakers and it is currently available for bilingual speakers who speak the following pairs of languages: English-
Arabic, Arabic-French, English-French, English-Italian, English-Samoan, English-
Spanish, Spanish-Catalan, Spanish-Galician, Spanish-Basque, Spanish-Italian, English-
Russian, English-Portuguese, French-Portuguese, Greek-French, and English-Japanese
(Birdsong et al. 2012).
There are currently numerous studies that use the BLP Questionnaire as a way to measure linguistic dominance among bilingual speakers of Spanish and another language and correlate it with speakers’ prosody (Baird 2015), rhythmic properties (Henriksen
2016, Coetzee et al. 2015), production and/ or perception of vowels (Amengual Watson
2013, Simonet 2014, Amengual & Chamorro 2015, and Amengual 2016b), laterals
(Amengual 2018), fricatives (Ramírez & Simonet 2017, Muxika-Loitzate 2017), and rhotics (Amengual 2016a).
Firstly, Baird (2015) analyzed the intonation patterns among twenty Spanish-
K’ichee’ bilingual speakers from Nahualá and Cantel, and ten monolingual speakers from
Quetzaltenango, in Guatemala. Baird (2015) used the BLP Questionnaire to measure the language dominance of Spanish-K’ichee’ bilingual speakers and found that all speakers
29 from Nahualá were dominant in K’ichee’ whereas all speakers from Cantel were dominant in Spanish. The BLP scores allowed the author to check whether there was a correlation between bilingual speakers’ language dominance and the intonation patterns in their speech. Baird (2015) found that there was an effect of language dominance on bilinguals’ intonation patterns. More precisely, speakers who were dominant in K’ichee’ had an earlier peak alignment L+H* in pre-nuclear tonic syllables than speakers who were dominant in Spanish, and this tendency was more consistent among speakers who were more strongly dominant in K’ichee’. In summary, the BLP allowed Baird (2015) to determine that bilingual speakers’ intonation pattern differed based on their linguistic dominance.
Coetzee et al. (2015) used the BLP in their study of the speech rhythm among
Afrikaans-Spanish bilinguals living in Patagonia. In their study, Coetzee et al. (2015) considered three of the four components of the BLP (language use, identity, and attitudes) and for that reason, the BLP dominance scores ranged from -180 to +180. The mean BLP score in their study was +48.7, which indicated that informants were more dominant in Afrikaans than in Spanish. As Afrikaans is a stress-timed language and
Spanish is a syllable-timed language, Coetzee et al. (2015) analyzed whether bilingual speakers showed a cross-linguistic influence when they read sentences out loud in both languages. For the purposes of their study, Coetzee et al. (2015) compared the speech rhythm of the Afrikaans-Spanish bilingual speakers to the speech rhythm of two control groups: (i) a control group of 8 monolingual speakers of Spanish from Argentina and (ii) a control group of ten monolingual speakers of Afrikaans from South Africa. The results
30 showed that bilingual speakers’ speech rhythm in Spanish was similar to that of Spanish monolinguals, whereas their Afrikaans speech rhythm for their vowel metrics was different to Afrikaans monolinguals. Coetzee et al. (2015) concluded that bilinguals’ speech rhythm in Spanish (their L2) influenced their speech rhythm in Afrikaans (their
L1), while their speech rhythm in Afrikaans did not influence their Spanish one that much. In their study, Coetzee et al. (2015) refer to speakers’ linguistic history to explain why they find an effect of their L2 into L1, but not the opposite. More precisely, Coetzee et al. (2015) claim that informants have lived in a Spanish dominant community for most of their lives, and that this could be the reason why their Spanish influences their
Afrikaans speech rhythm.
There are also studies that use the BLP in their analysis of the merger of sounds.
For instance, Amengual & Chamorro (2015) used the BLP Questionnaire to determine whether speakers’ linguistic dominance in Spanish or Galician had an effect on their merger or non-merger of the Galician mid vowels. The vowel system of Galician differs from that of Spanish as it has seven vowels (two more than Spanish) and it has a contrast between the higher mid vowels /e, o/ and the lower mid vowels /ɛ, ɔ/. In order to determine whether informants merged their mid vowels in Galician, Amengual &
Chamorro (2015) analyzed the perception and production data of 54 bilingual informants from Vigo and Santiago. Based on their BLP scores, 29 of them were more dominant in
Spanish whereas 25 of them were more dominant in Galician. The results showed that informants who were more dominant in Galician were able to perceive the contrast between the mid vowels, whereas informants who were more dominant in Spanish had
31 difficulties differentiating them. With regards to their production, all informants
(Spanish-dominant and Galician-dominant) maintained a contrast between the higher and lower back mid vowels /o, ɔ/, although informants who were more dominant in Galician kept this contrast in a more robust manner (2015:221). However, informants who were dominant in Galician were the only ones who maintained a contrast between the higher and lower front vowels /e, ɛ/, whereas speakers who were more dominant in Spanish did not and they merged both vowels into a single one (/e/). In summary, Amengual &
Chamorro (2015) used the BLP as a way to categorize informants as either Spanish- dominant or Galician-dominant and to determine that their dominance has an effect on their perception and production of mid vowels.
As in Baird (2015), Coetzee et al. (2015), and Amengual & Chamorro (2015), this dissertation measures language dominance among bilingual informants through their BLP score and analyzes its effect on informants’ pronunciation. Measuring informants’ linguistic dominance is important in this dissertation because it is used as a way to determine if linguistic contact has an effect on speakers’ pronunciation. As in Amengual
& Chamorro (2015), this dissertation focuses on the effects of linguistic dominance on speakers’ ability to keep a phonological contrast that is not present in Spanish. However, unlike Amengual & Chamorro (2015), this dissertation uses the BLP scores in a gradient manner, which allows to determine whether there are differences in production based on different degrees of language dominance. The possible role of linguistic contact is further explored in this dissertation by comparing bilinguals’ sibilant production in Basque and
Spanish. The following subsection provides more information on fricatives and affricates
32 by focusing on those of Basque and Spanish, the languages under study in this dissertation.
2.2. Fricatives and Affricates
2.2.1. Affricates and Fricatives Cross-linguistically
Fricatives are produced when the active articulator comes close to the passive articulator without touching it (Davenport & Hannahs 2005:27) and turbulence is created (Clark &
Yallop 1990:83). With regards to the types of fricatives, Clark et al. (2007) claim that they may differ in their “place of articulation, the shape of the constriction, and the aerodynamic forces of the airstream” (2007:45). Affricates are a combination of a stop and a fricative (Ladefoged 2006:16). First of all, the stop phase of the affricate sequence is produced with a total closure in the vocal tract and its subsequent release (Clark &
Yallop 1990:82). The fricative phase of the affricate is produced with a narrow constriction in the oral cavity, as explained earlier (Clark & Yallop 1990). Even though affricates are composed of a stop and a fricative, Davenport & Hannahs (2005:26) claim that in articulatory terms, they are not pronounced as if the stop and the sibilant were two separate sounds. More precisely, Davenport & Hannahs (2005:26, 2020) claim that the release of the stop phase of affricates is different from the release of oral stops, as the active articulator stays close to the passive articulator and is not totally lowered, which creates friction in the airflow5.
5 However, in phonological terms affricates have been considered to be both: one segment or a sequence of two segments (Roca 1994:3-4). Roca (1994) mentions the case of the English affricate /tʃ/ and explains that on the one hand, the English [tʃ] is 33
When fricatives and affricates are produced, the shape of the vocal tract modifies the turbulent airflow and it sometimes gives some sounds a “hissing quality” that characterizes them (Clark & Yallop 1990:83). Fricatives and affricatives that are produced with that “hissing quality” are known as sibilant sounds. For that reason,
Basque fricatives and affricates are considered to be sibilants (Etxebarria 1984, Hualde
2010, Gandarias et al. 2014, and Iglesias et al. 2016). With regards to the acoustic characterization of affricates, the stop phase can be identified as a lack of energy in the waveform and the spectrogram, and the fricative phase can be identified as a lack of formants in the spectrogram and an aperiodic waveform (Hualde 2014:45-50). The center of energy of fricatives can be in lower or higher frequencies depending on their place of articulation (Hualde 2014:48, Li & Gu 2015, and Schmid 2011). Consequently, it is possible to explore the place of articulation of the fricative phase of affricates by analyzing “how high the frequencies in a spectrum are on average” (Boersma & Weenink
considered to be a single segment because it can occur word-initially and the phonotactic constraints of English do not allow more than one obstruent in that position, with the exception of consonant clusters with followed by another obstruent (1994:4). In those cases, the affricate is considered to have one segment with a delayed release (Roca 1994:4). On the other hand, Roca (1994) explains that the English [tʃ] can be considered to have two segments. Firstly, the English [tʃ] does not behave exactly like a stop with a delayed release, because it cannot appear in the same contexts as stops, such as preceding a liquid (Roca 1994:4). Secondly, Roca (1994) explains that [tʃ] can be considered to have two segments based on the allomorphic variation found in some words. Roca (1994) mentions the example of the verb “matched” (Roca 1994:4) and claims that [tʃ] has to be considered a sequence of two segments in order to explain why the verb is followed by the allopmorh [t] instead of [ɘd], which is the allomorph used in verbal forms ending in a coronal stop, such as “patted” (1994:4). In order to explain these cases, Lombardi (1990) claims that the feature of [continuant] is not ordered in the underlying representation, although it is ordered phonetically (1990:421). That way, Lombardi (1990) explains why rules for [-continuant] and [+continuant] sounds apply to affricates (1990:421).
34
2007). The calculation of the average height of frequencies is called the Center of Gravity
(henceforth CoG). Boersma & Weenink (2007) define the CoG in the following manner:
“If the complex spectrum is given by S(f), where f is the frequency, the centre of gravity ∞ p ∞ p is given by ∫0 f |S(f)| df divided by the “energy” ∫0 |S(f)| df. Thus the centre of gravity is the average of f over the entire frequency domain, weighted by |S(f)|p. For p = 2, the weighting is done by the power spectrum, and for p = 1, the weighting is done by the absolute spectrum. A value of p = 2/3 has been seen as well.” (Boersma & Weenink 2007).
The CoG has been used as the acoustic correlate of the place of articulation of fricatives and affricates in studies that analyze languages with rich phonological inventories. Li & Gu (2015) analyzed the six affricates of Mandarin: two alveolar affricates /ʦ, ʦʰ/, two retroflex affricates /tʂ, tʂʰ/, and two alveo-palatal affricates /ʨ, ʨʰ/.
They analyzed these sounds in the production data of eight speakers: four males and four females. Li & Gu (2015) measured the CoG, dispersion, skewness, kurtosis, F2 onset of the following vowel, the spectral peak location, the normalized amplitude, and the normalized duration of the closure and the frication (2015:1680). The skewness is a spectral moment that correlates with the spectral peak and according to Jongman et al.
(2000), positive values indicate more “peakedness” whereas negative values indicate that the distribution is more flat (2000:1253). According to Li & Gu (2015), the CoG was
“extracted from the middle 80% time interval of the frication” (2015:1680). Moreover, the authors normalized the duration by calculating the ratio of the closure and the frication over the syllable (2015:1680). The results showed that five acoustic measurements could distinguish the affricates of Mandarin based on their three places of
35 articulation: CoG, dispersion, skewness, normalized amplitude, and spectral peak location (2015:1683). Moreover, Li & Gu (2015) found that CoG, skewness, and spectral peak location were the measures that best correlated with the place of articulation
(2015:1683), as affricates produced with fronter articulations had higher frequencies.
More precisely, alveolar affricates had the highest CoG values whereas retroflex affricates had the lowest CoG values out of the six affricates. The CoG values of the alveo-palatal affricates were in between those of the alveolar affricates and the retroflex ones. Table 3 shows the results for CoG obtained by Li & Gu (2015):
Affricates COG (Hz) /ʦ/ 9498.3 /ʦʰ/ 7829.3 /tʂ/ 4833.3 /tʂʰ/ 4531.7 /ʨ/ 7278.0 /ʨʰ/ 6792.7 Table 3: Results for the COG of Mandarin affricates in Li & Gu (2015:1681)
The results also showed that aspirated affricates had a lower CoG than unaspirated affricates and that this difference was statistically significant. As for effect of the following vowel, the CoG value was higher when the affricate was followed by the vowel /i/ than when it was followed by /a/ (2015:1683). With regards to the normalized duration of the frication phase of affricates, Li & Gu (2015) found that it could not distinguish the three places of articulation of the Mandarin affricates. The results for 36 duration showed that the frication phase in alveo-palatal affricates was longer than in retroflex affricates, but there were no significant differences in duration between the frication phases of alveolar and retroflex affricates. However, the duration of the fricative phase allowed distinguishing aspirated and unaspirated affricates, as aspirated affricates had longer fricative phase durations than unaspirated affricates. As for the effects of the following vowel on duration, the frication phase was longer when the affricates were followed by /i/ than when they were followed by /a/. According to Li & Gu (2015), affricates that were followed by /a/ had a shorter duration because /a/ required speakers to make a bigger articulatory effort than /i/ (Li & Gu 2015:1683). Li & Gu (2015) concluded that the spectral energy distribution parameters (such as CoG) allowed to distinguish between the three places of articulation of Mandarin affricates, whereas the normalized duration/ amplitude of the frication phase of affricates made it possible to distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated affricates.
Liu & Jongman (2013) analyzed the acquisition of two Mandarin affricates (/ʦ/ and /ʦʰ/) by 10 L1 speakers of American English who were at different levels of Chinese: level 1 and level 3. The objectives of the study were (a) to analyze if learners of Chinese were able to make a distinction between the two affricates and (b) to see if learners’ production approached that of native speakers as their level increased. In order to do that,
Liu & Jongman measured ‘the release duration’ (which they define as the duration of the burst and the frication) and the CoG of the fricative phase at 25%, 50% and 75% of their duration in the production data of all the informants (Liu & Jongman 2013:4). Based on previous studies, Liu & Jongman (2013) expected the aspirated affricate to have longer
37 release duration and lower CoG values than the unaspirated affricate. The results showed that the aspirated affricate had a longer release duration than the unaspirated affricate and that this was significant across all the proficiency levels: level 1, level 3, and native speakers. However, the difference in release duration between the aspirated and the unaspirated affricate was smaller for level 1 learners than for the other proficiency groups. The results also showed that the CoG difference between the aspirated and unaspirated affricates for level 3 learners was similar to the CoG difference for native speakers. However, the CoG difference for level 1 learners was significantly different from the level 3 learners and for native speakers. More specifically, level 1 learners had a smaller difference between the aspirated and unaspirated affricates than level 3 learners and native speakers. Liu & Jongman (2013) concluded that learners from both levels 1 and 3 were able to maintain a contrast in their production of Chinese affricates. However, there was a difference in their production: learners from level 1 were making a duration contrast between the affricates, whereas learners from level 3 were able to make both the duration and the CoG contrast between the two affricates.
Schmid (2011) analyzed the production of postalveolar affricates, palatal stops, and velar stops in two Romance languages: a variety of Calabrian spoken in San
Giovanni (southern Italy), and Vallader, a variety of Romansh spoken in Switzerland.
Schmid measured the CoG of two postalveolar affricates /͡tʃ, ʤ/, two palatal stops /c, ɟ/, and two velar stops /k, g/ in the production data of four male speakers from San Giovanni and five female speakers from Vallader. With regards to the two palatal stops /c, ɟ/,
Schmid explained that their description is controversial since they have been described as
38 affricates and transcribed as /ʨ, ʥ/ before (Schmid 2011:1763). Moreover, Schmid claimed that the distinction between stops and affricates seems to be non-categorical, and that it can be described as a continuum instead (3011:1763). This could explain why
Schmid decided to use the CoG as an acoustic measurement for the place of articulation of not only affricates, but also for stops. The results for speakers of Sangiovannese showed that the CoG values of the postalveolar affricates /͡tʃ, ʤ/ were the highest whereas the CoG values of the velar stops /k, g/ were the lowest of the six obstruents that were analyzed. The CoG values of the palatal stops /c, ɟ/ were in between those of the postalveolar affricates and those of the velar stops. Schmid (2011) conducted a statistical analysis in which he analyzed the differences between the CoG values for the six phonemes in two univariate ANOVAs and a post hoc test and he found that all the differences except /ɟ/-/k/ were significant (2011:1764). Schmid (2011) concluded that the
CoG could differentiate the three places of articulation (postalveolar, palatal, and velar) of obstruents in Sangiovannese (2011:1764).
As for the speakers of Vallader, the results showed that velar stops /k, g/ had the lowest CoG values of all the obstruents. However, unlike Sangiovannese speakers, all the speakers of Vallader except one had higher CoG values for their palatal stops /c, ɟ/ than for their postalveolar affricates /͡tʃ, ʤ/ (2011:1764). Schmid carried out a univariate anova and found that only the difference between /ʤ/-/ɟ/ was significant, whereas the comparison between /͡tʃ/-/c/ was not significant (2011:1765). In this case, Schmid
(2011:1764) claimed that the CoG can help to differentiate velar stops from more fronted obstruents.
39
Schmid (2011) concluded that the CoG was a “valuable acoustic cue” to the places of articulation of affricates and stops in Sangiovannese and Vallader (2011:1765).
More specifically, Sangiovannese speakers kept a contrast between /͡tʃ, ʤ/ and /c, ɟ/, whereas Schmid claimed that there could be “a possible confusion” of these sounds in the
Vallader data (2011:1765). Schmid (2011) concluded that Sangiovannese speakers seemed to keep the contrast between postalveolar affricates and palatal stops, whereas
Vallader speakers seemed to have merged those two categories to some extent. Schmid
(2011) hypothesized that Vallader speakers would completely merge postalveolar affricates and palatal stops in the future and that the resulting merged obstruents would be the postalveolar affricates (2011:1765).
Jongman et al. (2000) analyzed the production of English /f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ/ acoustically. In order to do that, Jongman et al. (2000) collected data from 10 female speakers and 10 male speakers of American English completing a reading task. Jongman et al. (2000) found that the spectral and amplitude information were able to differentiate the places of articulation of fricatives (2000:1261). With regards to the CoG, Jongman et al. (2000:1257) found that /s, z/ had the highest CoG values of all fricatives (6133 Hz), whereas /ʃ, ʒ/ had the lowest CoG values (4229 Hz). Jongman et al. (2000:1257) conducted a statistical analysis and found that the CoG difference between /s, z/ and /ʃ, ʒ/ was statistically significant (p<0.0001). As for the four non-sibilant fricatives (/f, v, θ,
ð/), their CoG values were in between those for /s, z/ and /ʃ, ʒ/. More precisely, the mean
CoG value for /f, v/ was 5108 Hz and the mean CoG value for /θ, ð/ was 5137 Hz. This difference between labiodentals and (inter)dentals was not statistically significant
40
(Jongman et al. 2000:1257). Jongman et al. (2000:1257) found that voicing had a significant effect on the CoG, as voiced fricatives had a lower CoG than voiceless fricatives. As for gender differences, females had higher CoG values than males
(Jongman et al. 2000:1257). Jongman et al. (2000) also found that skewness could differentiate the four places of articulation of English fricatives and that it was highest for
/ʃ, ʒ/, as their concentration of energy was in lower frequencies (2000:1257).
Ferreira-Silva et al. (2015) analyzed the production of the labiodental fricatives /f, v/, alveolar fricatives /s, z/, and postalveolar fricatives /ʃ, ʒ/ in Brazilian Portuguese. In order to do that, the authors collected data from three men and two women from Bahia who were between 18 and 27 years old. The informants in their study completed a reading task. In the task they had to read carrier sentences that contained the words of interest in word initial position followed by the vowels /a, i, u/. Ferreira-Silva et al.
(2015) measured four spectral moments: the CoG, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis (2015:374). Their results showed that the CoG and the standard deviation could differentiate the places of articulation of fricatives best. The results for the CoG showed that the alveolar fricatives /s, z/ had the highest values of all fricatives: 7417 Hz
(2015:375). As we would expect, their CoG values were higher than those for the postalveolar fricatives /ʃ, ʒ/ (4608 Hz), as their place of articulation is more fronted
(2015:375). The CoG values of the alveolar fricatives /s, z/ were also higher than those for the labiodental fricatives /f, v/ (5003 Hz), because they are sibilants and they have their concentration of energy at a higher frequency that non-sibilants, despite the fact that they are produced farther back. As for the effect of the following vowel, the CoG was
41 lower when it was followed by the vowel /u/ and it was higher when it was followed by
/a, i/. According to Ferreira-Silva et al. (2015), the standard deviation could differentiate sibilants from non-sibilants (2015:376). In other words, it could differentiate the labiodental fricatives /f, v/ from the sibilants: the alveolar fricatives /s, z/ and postalveolar fricatives /ʃ, ʒ/. The statistical analyses conducted by Ferreira-Silva et al. (2015) showed that the skewness and kurtosis were not as helpful as the CoG and the standard deviation to differentiate the places of articulation of fricatives in Brazilian Portuguese.
In summary, previous studies have concluded that the CoG is an appropriate acoustic cue to differentiate the places of articulation of affricates and fricatives in different languages that have rich sibilant inventories. More precisely, sibilants that are pronounced in the front of the oral cavity have a higher CoG than those pronounced farther back. Additionally, some studies (such as Li & Gu 2015) have found that duration can also be a useful acoustic cue to differentiate certain affricates.
2.2.2. Affricates and Fricatives in Basque
Another language that has a rich sibilant inventory is Basque, the language under study in this dissertation. Basque has three underlying voiceless affricates that have different places of articulation. The three Basque affricates are the following: the lamino-alveolar affricate /͡ts̻ /, the apico-alveolar affricate /͡ts̺ /, and the prepalatal affricate /͡tʃ/ (Iglesias et al.
2016:6). These three affricates differ in their places of articulation and they appear in words such as atzo /ˈa.t͡ s̻ o/ ‘yesterday’, atso /ˈa.t͡ s̺ o/ ‘elderly person’, and gutxi /ˈgu.t͡ ʃi/ ‘a little/ few’. Basque affricates have three fricative counterparts: the lamino-alveolar fricative /s̻ /, the apico-alveolar fricative /s̺ /, and the prepalatal fricative /ʃ/. Table 5 shows 42 the affricates and fricatives of Basque, including the grapheme and IPA symbol used to represent them, their description, and an example for each of them.
Grapheme IPA Symbol Place of articulation Example
Fricatives /s̺ / apico-alveolar su ‘fire’
There is some controversy regarding the description of Basque fricatives and affricates. Jurado Noriega (2011) uses the term “predorsodentoalveolar” to refer to the lamino-alveolar fricative, although she explains that other authors use the terms “denti- alveolar” or “lamino-alveolar” to refer to them (2011:92). According to Jurado Noriega
(2011), the lamino-alveolar fricative is produced in a more fronted part of the oral cavity, in the area between the alveolar ridge and the upper incisors (2011:92). With regards to the apico-alveolar fricative, Jurado Noriega (2011) explains that it is produced with the tip of the tongue in an upward position and pointing at the alveolar or post-alveolar ridge
(2011:92). According to Jurado Noriega (2011), this sound can be produced in a retroflex 43 manner. Finally, Jurado Noriega (2011) refers to the prepalatal fricative as
“alveolopalatal” fricative or “post-alveolar palatalized” fricative (2011:92). The Basque affricates have the same places of articulation as their fricative counterparts. As a consequence of the numerous descriptions of Basque sibilants, there is also controversy regarding the IPA symbols used to represent them. Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2009) use the phonemes /s, s̺ , ʃ, ts, ts̺ , tʃ/ to represent Basque fricatives and affricates (2009:149), and Jurado Noriega (2011) uses the allophones [s̪ , ʂ, ɕ] to represent the fricatives
(2011:82). Hualde (2010), however, uses the graphemes
2013:6, and Iglesias et al. 2016:6) and it uses the graphemes
Besides the sibilants mentioned above, Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003) explain that there is also an epenthetic fricative that is inserted after the high front vowel /i/
(2003:48) and before another vowel in some varieties of Basque. In the area of Markina,
Bizkaia, and western Gipuzkoa this epenthetic sound is a voiceless prepalatal fricative [ʃ], whereas in central Bizkaia, the region under study in this dissertation, this epenthetic sound is a voiced prepalatal fricative [ʒ] (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003:48). In those varieties a word like “mendia” ‘the mountain’ could be pronounced as [men̪ .ˈdi.ʃa]
(spelled as mendixa in non standard Basque) or [men̪ .ˈdi.ʒa] (spelled as mendijja or mendidxa in non standard Basque) (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003:48). However, according to the Academy of the Basque Language, these epenthetic fricatives are only
44 inserted in vernacular varieties of Basque, whereas we would expect the word to be pronounced [men̪ .ˈdi.a] based on the pronunciation rules of standard Basque
(Euskaltzaindia 1998).
Previous studies have found that the preceding vowel can have an effect on the production of Basque sibilants. More specifically, Zuazo (2017, 2019) claimed that there are certain varieties, such as the Western variety of Basque, where lamino-alveolar sibilants are palatalized when they are preceded by the front high vowel [i] or the glide
[j]. Following this rule of palatalization, the word bizar ‘beard’ of standard Basque would be pronounced as bixer and the word ekaitz ‘storm’ in standard Basque would be pronounced as ekatx in the Western variety of Basque (Zuazo 2017). Hualde & Ortiz de
Urbina (2003) claim that palatalization also occurs with other sounds in Basque and they use the term “conditioned palatalization” (2003:37) to refer to the palatalization caused by the preceding front vowels. The nasal /n/, the lateral /l/, and the stop /t/ are palatalized after the front high vowel [i] and are realized as a voiced palatal nasal [ɲ], a voiced palatal lateral [ʎ], and voiceless palatal stop [c] respectively, as in the words baina ‘but’, maila ‘the level’, and amaitu ‘finish’ (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003:37-38). A detail worth mentioning here is that according to Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003:38) there are varieties of Basque in Bizkaia that have replaced the voiceless palatal stop [c] with a voiceless prepalatal affricate. Finally, the dental stop /d/ is palatalized in the contexts of
/ild/ and /ind/. In those cases the lateral and the nasal are palatalized and this affects the production of the following dental stop, which is also palatalized. The palatalized /d/ in these cases is pronounced as the voiced palatal fricative [ʝ] or stop [ɟ], as in the word
45 menditik ‘from the mountain’ (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003:38). These types of conditioned palatalization have been reported in the variety of Basque spoken in
Amorebieta-Etxano (Etxebarria 1984), as I explain in the following section.
2.2.2.1. Previous studies on Basque sibilants
There are studies that analyze the production of Basque sibilants using different methodologies, such as acoustic analyses using Praat, MRI images, palatography, linguograms, and video recordings. There are previous studies that have analyzed Basque sibilants in non-merging varieties of Basque (see Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. 2009, Hualde
2010, Iglesias et al. 2016, and Egurtzegi & Carignan 2019). Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al.
(2009) used an MRI scan to analyze the fricative phase of the Basque affricates in the production data of six speakers: two male speakers and one female speaker from
Gipuzkoa, two male speakers from Bizkaia, and a female speaker from Nafarroa. In their study, Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2009) considered both speakers who merged their affricates and speakers who did not. They measured the front and back area of the articulatory constriction, and the distance between the tongue and four articulatory points: the alveolar ridge, the prepalatal ridge, the palatal ridge, and the postpalatal ridge
(2009:148). The rationale for measuring the front and back area of the articulatory constriction is that these areas correlate with the place of articulation of Basque affricates and fricatives. More specifically, the area of the oral cavity is higher when the place of articulation of the fricative or the affricate is more fronted than when it is pronounced at the back of the oral cavity (2009:150). The rationale for measuring the distance between the tongue and four articulatory points is also that they correlate with the place of 46 articulation of fricatives and affricates. Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2009) compared the results for the fricative phase of affricates to the results they obtained in their analysis of fricatives in Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2008, cited in Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. 2009).
Their results showed that the prepalatal affricate had the lowest oral cavity area of the three affricates whereas the lamino-alveolar affricate had the highest area of the three affricates (2009:151). The oral cavity area of the apico-alveolar affricate was in between the oral cavity area of the lamino-alveolar and the prepalatal affricates (2009:151). As for the results for the distance between the tongue and the four articulatory points, the results show that the distance between the tongue and the prepalatal ridge and the palatal ridge correlate with the place of articulation of the affricate in a more reliable manner than other distance points. According to Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2009), the distance between the tongue and the prepalatal ridge and the palatal ridge is smaller when the affricate or the fricative is pronounced at the back of the oral cavity. Moreover, this distance measurement shows that the apico-alveolar affricate is articulated more similarly to the prepalatal affricate than to the lamino-alveolar affricate. Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al.
(2009) also found that there are no major differences between the articulation of fricatives and the fricative phase of affricates. Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2009) did not conduct a statistical analysis, but they developed a software called DicomPas to carry out the measurements mentioned above using the MRI images. Figure 3 retrieved from
Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2009:158) shows MRI images of the three informants from
Gipuzkoa (GM, NL, and AA) in their production of the three Basque fricatives (upper part of the figure) and of the three Basque affricates (lower part of the figure). The
47 images on the left correspond to the lamino-alveolar fricative and affricate (which I refer to using the symbols /s̻ / and /͡ts̻ /), the images in the middle correspond to the apico- alveolar fricative and affricate (/s̺ / and /͡ts̺ /), and the images on the right correspond to the prepalatal fricative and affricate (/ʃ/ and /͡tʃ/).
Figure 3: Screenshot of MRI pictures of speakers pronouncing Basque fricatives and affricates in Elejabeitia Ortuondo et al. (2009:158).
Hualde (2010) conducted an acoustic analysis of the Basque fricatives and affricates in the production data of a speaker from Goizueta, Nafarroa. The informant was a speaker of a non-merging variety of Basque. Hualde (2010) analyzed the spectral peak, the CoG, the standard distribution, and the skewness of the fricatives and affricates in
48
Basque. Hualde (2010) found that the CoG values of the lamino-alveolar affricate were the highest of the three affricates and the CoG values of the prepalatal affricate were the lowest ones. The CoG values of the apico-alveolar affricate were in between the CoG values of the lamino-alveolar and the prepalatal affricates. This pattern was repeated among Basque fricatives too. The following table summarizes the CoG values for the
Basque fricatives and affricates in Hualde (2010:94).
Phoneme CoG (Hz) /͡ts̻ / 7183.700 Affricates /͡ts̺ / 4343.000 /͡tʃ/ 3829.000 /s̻ / 6645.217 Fricatives /s̺ / 4173.368 /ʃ/ 3531.143 Table 5: Results for the CoG values of the Basque affricates and fricatives presented in Hualde (2010:94)
Hualde (2010) found that the lamino-alveolar affricate is different from the apico- alveolar and the prepalatal affricate; and that the latter sounds are more similar to each other based on the acoustic measurements carried out in the study. This was also the case among the fricatives. With regards to the statistical analysis, Hualde (2010) found that the difference between the apico-alveolar and the prepalatal fricatives was not significant
(2010:95). However, Hualde (2010) claimed that further analysis could show that there were differences in the transition from these fricatives to the adjacent vowels. Hualde did 49 not report the results of the statistical analysis for affricates or for the rest of the fricatives.
Likewise, Iglesias et al. (2016) analyzed Basque fricatives and affricates in the production data of a female speaker from Beizama, Gipuzkoa. Unlike Hualde (2010),
Iglesias et al. (2016) found that the apico-alveolar affricate had the lowest CoG values of the three affricates whereas the CoG values of the prepalatal affricate were in between those of the lamino-alveolar and the apico-alveolar affricates. As for fricatives, Iglesias et al. (2016) found that the lamino-alveolar fricative had the highest CoG value whereas the prepalatal fricative had the lowest CoG value of the three fricatives. The CoG values of the apico-alveolar fricative were in between those of the lamino-alveolar and the prepalatal fricatives. Table 7 shows the results for the Basque affricates and fricatives presented in Iglesias et al. (2016:13). All the phoneme comparisons were statistically significant.
Phoneme Grapheme CoG (Hz) /͡ts̻ / 8080.95 /ʃ/
50
Iglesias et al. (2016) found that only two acoustic measurements could differentiate the three Basque affricates: the CoG and the standard deviation. The affricates were not differentiated by any other acoustic measurement. However, the following acoustic measures could distinguish the three Basque fricatives: the CoG, the standard deviation, the asymmetry of the CoG, the beginning of the concentration of energy, and the transition between the consonant and the vowel. The asymmetry is related to the CoG and the standard deviation, and it calculates whether the energy is symmetrically distributed in both sides of the CoG or not (Iglesias et al. 2016). More specifically, positive values indicate that there is more energy in the lower frequencies than in the upper frequencies, whereas negative values indicate the opposite.
With regards to duration, Iglesias et al. (2016) found that the apico-alveolar affricate had the longest stop phase duration whereas lamino-alveolar had the shortest stop phase duration. The stop phase duration of the prepalatal was in between that of the lamino-alveolar and the apico-alveolar affricates. Moreover, the stop phase duration could help differentiate between
51 fricatives, the prepalatal fricative was the longest one, followed by the lamino-alveolar and finally, by the apico-alveolar fricative. The only statistical difference was the one between the duration of the apico-alveolar and the lamino-alveolar fricatives (p=0.002).
Even though the studies summarized above analyze varieties of Basque that keep a distinction among the three Basque affricates on the one hand and the three Basque fricatives on the other, the contrast is not always maintained and these sounds are merged in some varieties of Basque (Hualde 2010, Gaminde et al. 2013, and Gandarias 2014).
The concept of merger refers to a loss of a distinction that differentiates two sounds and this can occur to allophonic alternations and phonological contrasts (Yárnoz 2001:12). As mentioned earlier, Hualde (2010:100) claims that the merger of Basque sibilants could have originated in Bilbo and could have spread through the Basque territory afterwards.
However, Ulibarri Orueta (2015) found that the sibilant merger was present in different texts in Gasteiz at an earlier time than in Bilbo, which suggests that the merger originated in a southern area of the Basque Country. According to previous studies, most of the
Basque speakers in sibilant merging varieties merge their apico-alveolar and lamino- alveolar affricates and they pronounce them as the lamino-alveolar affricate, whereas they keep the prepalatal affricate distinct (Hualde 2010:98). Additionally, speakers tend to merge the apico-alveolar and lamino-alveolar fricatives, but the resulting sound in this case is an apico-alveolar fricative (Hualde 2010:98). According to Zuazo (2017), this is the type of merger that characterizes the Western variety of Basque. However, the direction of the merger varies depending on the variety of Basque. For instance, in some parts of Gipuzkoa speakers tend to merge the apico-alveolar and the prepalatal affricate
52 and the resulting affricate is the prepalatal one, whereas the lamino-alveolar affricate is kept distinct (Hualde 2010:98). Those speakers may also merge the apico-alveolar and lamino-alveolar fricatives, but in their case the resulting merged fricative is the lamino- alveolar fricative.
Urrutia et al. (1988), Jurado Noriega (2011), Gaminde et al. (2013), Muxika-
Loitzate (2017), and Beristain (2018a) documented the sibilant merger in different varieties of Basque. Gandarias et al. (2014) also analyzed sibilants in a merging variety of
Basque, although the study did not measure the merged sibilants acoustically. Urrutia et al. (1988) analyzed the affricates and fricatives of 9 speakers of Western Basque, the variety of Basque under study in this dissertation. More specifically, Urrutia et al. (1988) analyzed the production data of one speaker from each of these locations who spoke
Western Bizkaian Basque: Amorebieta-Etxano, Forua, Mungia, Mundaka, Berango,
Zeanuri, Orozko, Zeberio, and Villareal. Even though all the informants mentioned above spoke Western Bizkaian Basque, Urrutia et al. (1988) claimed that they belonged to different subdialects. More precisely, the speakers from Amorebieta, Forua, and Mungia were considered to be part of the variety of Basque of Gernika, the speaker from
Mundaka was classified as a speaker of the variety of Basque of Bermeo, the speaker from Berango was part of the variety of Basque of Plentzia, the speaker from Zeanuri was part of Arratian Basque, the speaker from Orozko was considered to be part of the variety of Basque from Orozko, the speaker from Zeberio was part of the variety of Basque of
Arrigorriaga, and the speaker from Villareal spoke the variety of Basque from Otxandio.
The informants were males who were between 35 and 64 years old and they were audio
53 recorded while they completed an oral interview. During the interview, the interviewer asked questions in Spanish such as ¿Cómo se dice en euskera contento? ‘How do you say happy in Basque?’ and informants needed to answer in Basque. Urrutia et al. (1988) analyzed the frequency at the beginning of the frication phase, and the duration of the stop phase and the fricative phase of words that contained the sounds of interest. For the results, the authors classified the sounds in two main groups regardless of their spelling.
Those two groups were: (a) alveolars, and (b) palatals (1988:77). Urrutia et al. (1988) created more subgroups inside those two groups based on how the affricates were pronounced. Here I only summarize their results for the affricates produced with a stop phase and a fricative phase, given that the present dissertation analyzes only tokens with those two phases6. Table 7 shows the results obtained by Urrutia el al. (1988:80-82) for the group of “alveolars” that speakers of Western Bizkaian Basque produced with a stop phase and a fricative phase. The token count for that data was 72. There are no results for the apico-alveolar affricate in word initial position because there are no words that have this sound in word initial position in Basque (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003)7.
Moreover, Urrutia et al. (1988) did not report the results for the stop phase of word initial affricates, and this could be because of the difficulties to segment its onset when
6 For more information on the other articulations (such as friction+friction or friction+stop+friction) see Urrutia et al. (1988). 7 According to Hualde (1991), the apico-alveolar affricate does not appear word-initially in any native words in Basque (1991:12). Moreover, the lamino-alveolar affricate is not common in word initial position either. However, the prepalatal affricate is more common in word initial position in varieties of Basque spoken in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa because historically there were words that had a word initial prepalatal fricative that was strengthened and became a prepalatal affricate (for example, the word xori ‘bird’ became txori in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa). 54 informants pronounce words in isolation. When summarizing the results in Urrutia et al.
(1988) I refer to the graphemes used to represent each fricative and affricate, given that the authors used orthography to refer to the sounds of interest. Urrutia et al. (1988) found that words that had
Affricates classified as “alveolars” in Urrutia et al. (1988:80-82) Frequency at Total Duration of Duration of the beginning duration of Spelling Context the stop the fricative of frication the affricate phase (ms) phase (ms) (Hz) (ms) Word initial 3098 - 76 -
55
According to Urrutia et al. (1988), there were tokens that were classified as
“palatals” and had a stop phase and a fricative phase. In intervocalic positions, words that contained
Urrutia el al. (1988:100-102) for the group of “palatals” that speakers of Western
Bizkaian Basque produced with a stop phase and a fricative phase. The token count for that data was 90.
Affricates classified as “palatals” in Urrutia et al. (1988:100-102) Frequency at Total Duration of Duration of the beginning duration of Spelling Context the stop the fricative of frication the affricate phase (ms) phase (ms) (Hz) (ms) Word initial 2656 - 68 -
Urrutia et al. (1988) concluded that speakers were merging two of their affricates and that they were only making a contrast between alveolar and palatal affricates, regardless of the spelling of the word. Likewise, Urrutia et al. (1988) found that speakers
56 merged two of their Basque fricatives: the apico-alveolar and the lamino-alveolar fricatives. Moreover, Urrutia et al. (1988) claimed that in Bizkaian Basque it was common to have a total merger and to use a single apico-alveolar fricative. Urrutia et al.
(1988) explained the total merger of fricatives by saying that the prepalatal sound had a low frequency in speech and for that reason the opposition between palatals and non- palatals was rare (1988:159-160). Additionally, the authors reported that they found 115 instances of epenthetic sibilants in Bizkaian Basque (1988:146). In all those cases, the sibilant was inserted after a noun that finished in [i] and before the article vowel [a], which in some cases was raised to [e]. According to Urrutia et al. (1988), this sibilant was palatal in most of the cases, although it was also alveolar in some cases (1988:145). This epenthetic sound was found in all the subdialects of Bizkaian Basque (Urrutia et al.
1988:145).
The study by Urrutia et al. (1988) constitutes the first analysis of sibilants in a merging variety of Basque. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, it is also the first acoustic analysis of Basque affricates in the production data of a speaker from
Amorebieta-Etxano. However, one of the limitations of this study is that it grouped speakers from different locations together and classified all of them as speakers of western Basque. Consequently, a bigger sample from each of the subdialects is needed in order to know whether speakers are merging their sibilants or not.
Jurado Noriega (2011) documented the sibilant merger in a variety of Basque that had been described as being a non-merging variety. More precisely, Jurado Noriega (2011) found that informants who had Basque as their L2 tended to merge their
57 more than informants who had Basque as their L1. This could support the hypothesis that language dominance might be playing a role in the merger of Basque sibilants among some speakers. The findings of Jurado Noriega (2011) are presented in section 2.2.3 of this dissertation, as she included a comparison between informants’ sibilants in Basque and Spanish.
Other studies have focused on varieties of Basque that have been described as sibilant-merging varieties of Basque. Gaminde et al. (2013) analyzed the lamino-alveolar and prepalatal affricates in merging varieties of Basque. More specifically, they analyzed the production data of 11 female informants from: Abadiño, Aulesti, Berriz, Muxika,
Mallabia, Mungia, Zeberio, Arrigorriaga, Getxo, Sestao, Zalla. All the informants were between 20-28 years old and they were recorded pronouncing the nonce words “atza” and “atxa” (Gaminde et al. 2013:8). Gaminde et al. (2013) measured the duration of the stop phase, the fricative phase, and the total duration of the affricate. They also measured the CoG, standard deviation, asymmetry, and kurtosis of the affricates. The results showed that the CoG values of the lamino-alveolar affricate were higher (9868.36 Hz) than the CoG values of the prepalatal affricate (7128.19 Hz) (Gaminde et al. 2013:8-9).
With regards to the duration, the lamino-alveolar affricate had a total duration and a fricative phase duration that were longer than those of the prepalatal affricate (Gaminde et al. 2013:8-9).
Gaminde et al. (2013) compared the different acoustic measurements and concluded that the acoustic measurement that helped distinguish the two affricates best was the CoG (p=0.000) (2013:11). However, the fricative phase duration also helped to
58 distinguish the two affricates. Gaminde et al. (2013) also analyzed the effects of the mother tongue (Basque or Spanish) on the CoG, and they found that it had an effect on the production of the lamino-alveolar affricate, but not on the production of the prepalatal affricate (2013:8-9). As for the effect of mother tongue on the fricative phase duration,
Gaminde et al. (2013) found that it had an effect on both the fricative phase of the lamino-alveolar affricate and the prepalatal affricate. Table 9 shows the results obtained by Gaminde et al. (2013:8-10).
Duration of the Duration of the Total duration of Phoneme CoG (Hz) stop phase (ms) fricative phase (ms) the affricate (ms) /͡ts̻ / 9868.36 85.62 77.56 163.18 /͡tʃ/ 7128.19 88.84 65.48 154.32 Table 9: Results for the affricates in Bizkaia presented in Gaminde et al. (2013:8-10)
Gandarias et al. (2014) analyzed the acoustic and articulatory information for the
Basque affricates and fricatives in the variety of Basque spoken in Lekeitio. According to
Gandarias et al. (2014), the variety of Basque spoken in Lekeitio has an apico-alveolar fricative [s̺ ], a prepalatal fricative [ʃ], a lamino-alveolar affricate [͡ts̻ ], and a prepalatal affricate [t͡ ʃ]. Additionally, Gandarias et al. (2014) claimed that the variety of Basque spoken in Lekeitio also has the voiced prepalatal fricative [ʒ] and two voiced affricates
[dz̻ , dʒ]. It should be noted here that Gandarias et al. (2014) do not analyze the lamino- alveolar fricative and the apico-alveolar affricate, probably because they have been 59 described as being merged in this variety of Basque. Moreover, some of the sibilants that are present in Lekeitio Basque are allophones and do not have phonemic status. For instance, Gandarias et al. (2014:7) claimed that the prepalatal fricative [ʃ] is an allophone of the apico-alveolar fricative /s̺ / and that it is used when palatalization occurs. For that reason, the results for Lekeitio Basque in Gandarias et al. (2014) are presented using the
IPA symbols between square brackets, instead of being represented as phonemes as previously.
Gandarias et al. (2014) used palatography, linguograms, and video recordings to gather information about the articulation of Basque sibilants whereas they used the following acoustic measurements to gather acoustic information of sibilants: duration, spectral peak, CoG, standard deviation, asymmetry, kurtosis, the transition of the three first formants, and their values when they are stable. The informants were two female speakers who were 21 and 33 years old and a male speaker who was 22 years old
(Gandarias et al. 2014:7). First of all, Gandarias et al. (2014) presented the results for one of the female speakers and her results showed that the CoG values of the voiceless prepalatal affricate were higher than the CoG values of the voiceless lamino-alveolar affricate, contrary to what has been described by Hualde (2010), Iglesias et al. (2016), and Gaminde et al. (2013). According to Gaminde et al. (2013), the difference between the voiceless prepalatal affricate and the voiceless lamino-alveolar affricate was not statistically significant. Gandarias et al. (2014:14-16) also analyzed the voiced affricates of the two female speakers in their study, although the results for voiced affricates are not presented here given that they are not the focus of my dissertation.
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The results for the duration of affricates of the female speaker showed that the differences in the duration of the affricate release and the fricative phase between the voiceless lamino-alveolar and the voiceless prepalatal affricate were statistically significant. More specifically, the lamino-alveolar affricate had a shorter release duration and a longer fricative phase than the prepalatal affricate. The differences in the total duration of the affricates and the duration of the stop phase were not significant.
Likewise, the differences in the spectral moments (CoG, standard deviation, asymmetry, kurtosis) between the two affricates were not significant either. Table 10 shows the mean
CoG values, and duration for the two voiceless affricates in Gandarias et al. (2014).
Duration of the Total duration IPA Duration of the CoG (Hz) release bar and the of the affricate symbol stop phase (ms) fricative phase (ms) (ms) [͡ts̻ ] 9469.13 46 67 113 [͡tʃ] 10383.45 59 55 114 Table 10: Results for the voiceless affricates for a female speaker from Lekeitio presented in Gandarias et al. (2014:16-17)
With regards to fricatives, the results of the same female speaker showed that the voiced prepalatal fricative [ʒ] had the highest CoG value (8032.72 Hz) whereas the voiceless apico-alveolar fricative [s̺ ] had the lowest CoG value (6500.34 Hz) of the three fricatives (Gandarias et al. 2014:13). The CoG value of the voiceless prepalatal fricative
[ʃ] (6587.51) was in between that of the voiced prepalatal fricative and the voiceless
61 apico-alveolar fricative (Gandarias et al. 2014:13). According to Gandarias et al.
(2014:13), the difference between the voiced prepalatal fricative [ʒ] and the voiceless prepalatal fricative [ʃ] was statistically significant. However, the difference between the voiceless prepalatal fricative [ʃ] and the voiceless apico-alveolar fricative [s̺ ] was not statistically significant, which could lead to thinking that these informants were merging those sounds.
As for the duration of fricatives, the voiced prepalatal fricative [ʒ] was shorter than the other two fricatives, as its duration was 51 ms whereas the duration of the other two fricatives was 100 ms or more. According to Gandarias et al. (2014:12) the difference between the apico-alveolar fricative [s̺ ] and the prepalatal fricative [ʃ] was not statistically significant. Table 11 shows the mean CoG values and the duration of the fricatives in Gandarias et al. (2014).
Duration of the fricative IPA symbol CoG (Hz) (ms) [s̺ ] 6500.34 100 [ʃ] 6587.51 109 [ʒ] 8032.72 51 Table 11: Results for the fricatives for a female speaker from Lekeitio presented in Gandarias et al. (2014:12-13)
Gandarias et al. (2014) compared the results for voiceless sibilants of the female speaker above to the results of the male speaker who was around the same age (22 years old). When looking at the results of the female speaker and the male speaker separately, 62
Gandarias et al. (2014) found that the female speaker had higher CoG values than the male speaker, as we would expect based on previous studies that report an effect of speakers’ physical properties on the CoG (Erker & Reffel ms). However, only the male speaker had a higher CoG for the lamino-alveolar affricate than for the prepalatal affricate. Likewise, the male speaker had a higher CoG value for the apico-alveolar fricative than for the prepalatal fricative, whereas this was not the case for the female speaker. However, Gandarias et al. (2014) did not explain why that was the case. Table
12 below presents the mean CoG values for the female speaker and the male speaker in
Gandarias et al. (2014).
CoG (Hz) for the CoG (Hz) for the IPA symbol female speaker (n=1) male speaker (n=1) [͡ts̻ ] 9469.13 8943.39 Affricates [͡tʃ] 10383.45 7037.58 [s̺ ] 6500.34 5605.75 Fricatives [ʃ] 6587.51 4901 Table 12: Results for the sibilants in Lekeitio presented in Gandarias et al. (2014:18-19)
Muxika-Loitzate (2017) analyzed Basque fricatives in the production data of ten informants from Amorebieta-Etxano who were between 20 and 33 years old. Informants completed the Bilingual Language Profile Questionnaire (Birdsong et al. 2012) and a reading task that contained the sounds of interest. The overall results showed that CoG values of the lamino-alveolar fricative were the highest, followed by the CoG values of 63 the apico-alveolar fricative and finally, by those of the prepalatal fricative. However, only the difference between the lamino-alveolar and the prepalatal fricatives represented by the graphemes
Fricative CoG (Hz) /s̻ / 5756 /s̺ / 5461 /ʃ/ 5142 Table 13: Results for the CoG values of the Basque fricatives presented in Muxika- Loitzate (2017:12)
Muxika-Loitzate (2017) found that speakers’ degree of bilingualism had an effect on the production of fricatives. More specifically, the only statistically significant difference between fricatives was the one between the CoG values of the lamino-alveolar fricative and the prepalatal fricative among Basque dominant speakers. Moreover,
Muxika-Loitzate (2017) found that the places of articulation of the fricatives were more fronted among Basque dominant informants than among Spanish dominant informants.
Beristain (2018a) analyzed the apicoalveolar fricative /s̺ / and the lamino-alveolar affricate /͡ts̻ / in the data of five female speakers who were between 18 and 45 years old.
One of those speakers had Gernika Basque as her L1 whereas the other four female speakers were from the Greater Bilbo Area and had standard Basque as their L2. The informants were recorded while they completed interviews and the author measured the
64
CoG, duration, intensity, and amount of voicing of their sibilants. The results showed that the speaker from Gernika pronounced the apico-alveolar fricative /s̺ / with a mean CoG value of 3334.961 Hz, whereas the four female speakers from the Greater Bilbo Area pronounced that fricative with a mean CoG of 4398.673 Hz (Beristain 2018a:66). As for the lamino-alveolar affricate /͡ts̻ /, the speaker from Gernika pronounced its fricative phase with a mean CoG of 2625.148 Hz whereas the other four speakers from the Greater Bilbo
Area pronounced it with a mean CoG of 4843.631 Hz. Table 14 shows the results for the
CoG presented by Beristain (2018a).
IPA CoG for the female speaker CoG for the female speakers from
symbol from Gernika (n=1) the Greater Bilbo Area (n=4) Affricate /͡ts̻ / 2625.148 Hz 4843.631 Hz Fricative /s̺ / 3334.961 Hz 4398.673 Hz Table 14: Results for the CoG values of /͡ts̻ / and /s̺ / presented in Beristain (2018a:66-67)
After normalizing the CoG results, Beristain (2018a) concluded that the four speakers who had Basque as their L2 merged the place of articulation of the apico- alveolar fricative /s̺ / and the fricative phase of the lamino-alveolar affricate /͡ts̻ / (2018:67).
However, the speaker who had Basque as her L1 maintained the contrast in the places of articulation of these sounds. Beristain (2018a) also found that the following vowel had an effect on the CoG. More precisely, the sibilant had a higher CoG when it was followed by
/i/ than when it was followed by the vowels /a/ or /u/ (2018:68). With regards to duration,
65
Beristain (2018a) found that the speaker from Gernika and the four speakers from the
Greater Bilbo Area had similar sibilant durations, as can be seen in table 15, and that the differences in duration were not significant.
Duration for the female Duration for the female IPA speaker from Gernika speakers from the Greater symbol (n=1) Bilbo Area (n=4) Affricate /͡ts̻ / 47.795 ms 42.333 ms Fricative /s̺ / 79.160 ms 82.651 ms Table 15: Results for the duration of /͡ts̻ / and /s̺ / presented in Beristain (2018a:66-67)
There are earlier studies that mentioned the Basque sibilant merger too although their descriptions were often times impressionistic. In the case of Amorebieta-Etxano,
Etxebarria (1984) provided a short description of the sound inventory of inhabitants in the town. In his work Etxebarria (1984) focused on the customs and lifestyles of the inhabitants in the different areas of Amorebieta-Etxano and he collected data from 26 speakers who were between 52 and 91 years old during the years of 1973, 1974 and 1975.
Even though the focus of Etxebarria’s work was not linguistics, he briefly explained the sound inventory of people from Amorebieta-Etxano in order to justify his choice of the
Basque spelling in his work. According to Etxebarria (1984), the merger occurred in
Amorebieta-Etxano in the same direction that it was described for other varieties of
Basque spoken in Bizkaia (1984:12). More precisely, he claimed that the graphemes
66 and
(1984) also compared Basque to Spanish and claimed that the pronunciation of the grapheme
“the palatal t”, and the grapheme
(1984:12). Even though Etxebarria (1984) did not explain how these sounds are produced, his spelling of Basque words provided some insight into how they were pronounced in Amorebieta-Etxano. On the one hand, Etxebarria (1984) used the grapheme to represent the pronunciation of the grapheme
[i], as in aittitte ‘grandfather’ (1984:95). Based on Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina’s description (2003), represents the voiceless palatal stop [c] (2003:16). On the other hand, Etxebarria (1984) used the grapheme
Ortiz de Urbina (2003),
(2003:16). Etxebarria (1984) used
67
(1984) uses it for words such as “kanbijjeu” ‘to change’ (1984:16), “barrijje” ‘new’
(1984:41), or “afarijje” ‘dinner’ (1984:76). This sound corresponds to the epenthetic fricative [ʒ] that I mention in section 2.2.2. As described by Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina
(2003), the grapheme
Amorebieta-Etxano. Etxebarria (1984) also includes four instances in which the grapheme
1984:105).
2.2.3. Previous Studies on the Fricatives and Affricates of Spanish
The variety of Basque under study in this dissertation is in contact with the variety of northern peninsular Spanish and all the informants included in the dissertation speak it.
This dissertation compares informants’ pronunciation of Basque sibilants to their pronunciation of Spanish sibilants to explore the possible effect of linguistic contact. For that reason, it is important to understand the acoustic properties of the sibilants /s, ͡tʃ/ in
Spanish. The articulation of the fricative /s/ varies depending on the dialect of Spanish
(Hualde 2014:34 and Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas 2007:110). More precisely, the articulation of the fricative is apico-alveolar in northern and central peninsular
Spanish whereas it is dorso-alveolar, predorso-alveolar or lamino-alveolar in most other varieties of Spanish (Hualde 2014, Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas 2007:110,
Canfield 1981:17). There is a limited number of studies on Spanish sibilants (Borzone de
68
Manrique & Massone 1981, Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas 2007, Jurado Noriega
2011) and I summarize some of those studies in this section.
Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas (2007) acoustically compared the apico- alveolar fricative to the lamino-alveolar fricative and they found that the intensity was higher for the apico-alveolar fricative than for the lamino-alveolar fricative. When comparing the spectra of both fricatives, Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas (2007) found that the first spectral peak of the apico-alveolar fricative was at 4622 Hz, whereas it was at 6230 Hz in the lamino-alveolar fricative. Moreover, the noise intensity of the apico-alveolar fricative started at 3500 Hz, whereas it started at 5000 Hz for the lamino- alveolar fricative. Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas (2007) concluded that the apico- alveolar fricative has its “point of maximum energy” at the center of the spectrum whereas the energy is more “dispersed” for the lamino-alveolar (2007:110).
According to Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas (2007), previous studies have reported that /s/ can have a dental articulation and be pronounced as [s̪ ] when it is followed by a dental sound in Spanish (2007:112). However, Martínez Celdrán &
Fernández Planas (2007) analyzed the spectra of both a “dentalized” fricative and a non- dentalized one and found that the acoustic difference between them was very small, as the spectral peak of the dentalized fricative was only 58 Hz higher than the one of the non-dentalized fricative (2007:112-113).
Borzone de Manrique & Massone (1981) analyzed voiced and voiceless fricatives in the variety of Spanish from Buenos Aires. More precisely, Borzone de Manrique &
Massone (1981) analyzed five voiceless fricatives and five voiced fricatives that are
69 common in that variety of Spanish. It should be noted here that the number of voiced fricatives was high in this study because Borzone de Manrique & Massone (1981) classified the allophones [β, ð, ɣ] as such, even though these sounds are often times characterized as approximants8. In their analysis of fricatives, they included the voiceless sibilants [s, ʃ] and the voiced sibilant [ʒ], which appear in words like “sol” [ˈsol] ‘sun’,
“yo” [ˈʃo] ‘I’, and “calle” [ˈka.ʒe] ‘street’ in this variety of Spanish (1981:1145).
According to Borzone de Manrique & Massone (1981), both [ʃ] and [ʒ] are allophones of the phoneme /ʒ/ in Buenos Aires Spanish and the allophone [ʒ] was more commonly used
(1981:1145). In their first experiment, Borzone de Manrique & Massone (1981) conducted an acoustic analysis of the production data of four male speakers and they analyzed sibilants in isolated contexts as well as followed by a vowel. The results showed that the spectral peaks for [s] were found in the range of 5000 Hz-8000 Hz (Borzone de
Manrique & Massone 1981:1146). However, the spectral peaks for [ʃ] were found in a lower range (2500 Hz- 5000 Hz), and the spectral peaks for [ʒ] were found at the range of
3000 Hz – 5500 Hz, which was similar to the range of [ʃ] (Borzone de Manrique &
Massone 1981:1146). With regards to duration, Borzone de Manrique & Massone (1981) found that fricatives that were produced in an isolated context had longer durations than those produced before a vowel, as expected. With regards to the effects of voicing and stress on the fricative duration, fricatives were longer in unstressed syllables than in stressed syllables and voiced fricatives were shorter than voiceless fricatives (Borzone de
8 As Borzone de Manrique & Massone (1981), many studies have categorized the allophones of /b, d, ɡ/ categorically, although more recent studies use the intensity ratio to capture the gradient nature of voiced stop weakening (Hualde 2014, Solon 2018). 70
Manrique & Massone 1981:1147). This was reflected in the duration results of [s, ʃ, ʒ], as
[s] had a duration of 187 ms in unstressed syllables and 148 ms in stressed syllables, [ʃ] had a duration of 210 ms in unstressed syllables and 170 in stressed syllables, and [ʒ] had a duration of 149 ms in unstressed syllables and 98 ms in stressed syllables (Borzone de
Manrique & Massone 1981:1147).
As for fricatives in peninsular Spanish, Jurado Noriega (2011) analyzed Spanish fricatives in Donostialdea and Bidasoa (Gipuzkoa) and compared them to those in
Basque. It should be noted here that these varieties are described as maintaining the contrast in the places of articulation of Basque sibilants. Jurado Noriega (2011) collected data from 24 speakers who were divided into three groups: informants from outside the
Basque Country who were monolingual speakers of Spanish belonged to G1 (n=8), bilingual informants whose L1 was Basque were part of G2 (n=8), and bilingual informants whose L1 was Spanish belonged to G3 (n=8). The author hypothesized that the Spanish sibilant is different from the Basque sibilants and that it is pronounced at an intermediate place between the apico-alveolar and the lamino-alveolar fricatives in
Basque (Jurado Noriega 2011:94). The results showed that G1 speakers had a mean CoG of 4925.68 Hz for their Spanish /s/, whereas G2 speakers had a mean CoG of 5565.885
Hz, and G3 speakers had a mean CoG of 3945.31 Hz (Jurado Noriega 2011:135), as can be seen in table 16. Informants in G2 followed the hypothesis of Jurado Noriega (2011), as the articulation of their Spanish fricative was in between that of their lamino-alveolar and their apico-alveolar fricatives in Basque (2011:118). However, this was not the case for speakers in G3 and Jurado Noriega (2011) claimed that this was unexpected
71
(2011:113). However, when looking at the results for G3 in more detail, the CoG values for their [s̺ ] in Spanish and in Basque are very similar, which could mean that they were using the same fricative for both languages.
IPA Mean CoG in Mean CoG in Mean CoG symbol G1 G2 in G3 [s̻ ] 9601.78 5035.075 Basque [s̺ ] 5362.415 4098.205 Spanish [s̺ ] 4925.68 Hz 5565.885 3945.31 Table 16: Results for the mean CoG presented in Jurado Noriega (2011:135)
Likewise, Isasi et al. (2009) analyzed fricatives in Spanish and Basque in the production data of 5 speakers. The speakers were from Lekeitio, Bermeo, and Errezil, and they completed two interviews: one in Spanish and another one in Basque. Unlike in
Jurado Noriega (2011), all the informants in this study were chosen because they were described as “seseantes” when they spoke Spanish (Isasi et al. 2009:206), which means that they pronounced the grapheme
Peninsular Spanish. In their analysis of Basque, Isasi et al. (2009) focused on fricatives that are represented by the graphemes and , which they refer to using the term
“canonical s” (Isasi et al. 2009:213), as well as fricatives represented by the graphemes
72
Isasi et al. (2009) compared the fricatives of both languages by looking at the results of each informant in a graph and by comparing their results for in
Basque and for the “canonical s” and “s seseante” in Spanish. The overall results showed that speakers from Lekeitio and Bermeo (in Bizkaia) merged the apico-alveolar and the lamino-alveolar fricatives in Basque and they pronounced them as the apico-alveolar fricative (Isasi et al. 2009). However, speakers from Errezil (in Gipuzkoa) maintained the contrast between both fricatives, although not in a consistent manner. As for the effects of linguistic contact, Isasi et al. (2009) claimed that all the informants in their study used their Basque sibilant inventory when speaking Spanish (2009:232). More precisely, informants who had a single apico-alveolar fricative in Basque used this sound for all their fricatives in both languages. However, informants who maintained a contrast between the apico-alveolar and the lamino-alveolar fricatives in Basque used both of them in Spanish. More precisely, those informants used the apico-alveolar fricative to pronounce the “canonical s” in Spanish and the lamino-alveolar fricative to pronounce the “s seseante” (Isasi et al. 2009:232)
When looking at the results of each informant separately, Isasi et al. (2009) found that one of the informants from Lekeitio used an apico-alveolar sibilant for all the sibilant realizations that were analyzed in Basque and Spanish (2009:214). The other informant
73 from Lekeitio used an apico-alveolar sibilant in Basque and for the “canonical s” in
Spanish, whereas he used a lamino-alveolar sibilant for the “s seseante” (2009:217), which would be unexpected given that he did not have that sound in Basque (2009:232).
The informant from Bermeo used an apico-alveolar sibilant in Basque and Spanish, although his production was slightly less fronted than the production of other informants and it showed a greater variation (2009:222). As for the informants from Errezil, one of them uses an apico-alveolar sibilant for Basque words spelled with and for the
“canonical s” in Spanish, whereas he uses the lamino-alveolar sibilant for Basque words spelled with
Errezil also maintains the contrast between the apico-alveolar and the lamino-alveolar sibilants in some cases, although this is not always the case and Isasi et al. (2009) see it as evidence of “dephonologization” (2009:230) or merger in process.
Moving on to affricates, Hualde (2014) explains that Spanish has a voiceless prepalatal affricate /tʃ/ and that its articulation is more fronted in certain varieties of
Spanish, such as Chilean Spanish or the Spanish spoken in the area of Bilbo and other parts of Spain. Borzone de Manrique & Massone (1981) and Zabala et al. (2016) analyzed the variety of Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires. However, Zabala et al. (2016) focused on the allophonic alternations of the voiceless palatoalveolar affricate /tʃ/, rather than on fricatives. In their study, Zabala et al. (2016) collected data from 38 speakers who were 20 to 60 years old. Among the informants there were 20 women and 18 men.
Informants needed to tell a joke that was chosen for the purposes of the study and it contained two words with the sounds of interest in intervocalic position: “china”
74
‘Chinese’ (repeated twice) and “ocho” ‘eight’ (Zabala et al. 2016:159). The joke also contained the words “dice” ‘says’ (repeated twice) and “las” ‘the’ to elicit the production of the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ and the word “uruguayo” ‘Uruguayan’ to elicit the production of the voiceless and voiced palatoalveolar fricatives [ʃ, ʒ] (Zabala et al.
2016:159). Even though Zabala et al. (2016) focused on the affricate production, they used the fricative production data to compare it to the fricative phase of affricates. When comparing the spectrogram of the fricative phase of the affricate /tʃ/ to that of [ʃ], Zabala et al. (2016) found that the frequency range at the beginning of the frication was very similar in both cases. However, Zabala et al. (2016) also found cases in which the frequency range at the beginning of the frication phase was similar to that of [s]. Zabala et al. (2016) claimed that in those cases speakers were using an allophone of /tʃ/ that had a more fronted place of articulation and that had not been described by previous studies.
With regards to the effects of gender and age, the overall results showed that the affricate was produced farther back (or was similar to [ʃ]) among female speakers aged 51 to 60 and female speakers aged 21 to 30. However, informants who were between 21 and 30 years old produced the affricate in a more fronted position (or more similarly to [s]) in the word ocho (Zabala et al. 2016:169). As for males, younger speakers had the tendency to pronounce an affricate that was closer to [s] (Zabala et al. 2016:169). For future studies,
Zabala et al. (2016) recommended that researchers analyze the effects of each vowel on the production of affricates.
This dissertation analyzes the sibilants of Spanish focusing on the sibilants of northern peninsular Spanish. Moreover, it compares bilinguals’ production of sibilants in
75 that variety to that of Basque sibilants. However, unlike Jurado Noriega (2011), this dissertation explores all sibilant fricatives and affricates in both languages. The following section summarizes the acoustic measurements used in this dissertation.
2.2.4. Acoustic Measurements
According to Jurado Noriega (2011:89) and Erker & Reffel (ms), the acoustic properties of fricatives may change depending on speakers’ physical characteristics. More precisely, speakers’ sex and the length and shape of their vocal tract may have an effect on the acoustic properties of /s/, as fricatives tend to have a higher frequency when they are pronounced by speakers with a small vocal tract and a short palate (Erker & Reffel ms).
Consequently, Erker & Reffel (ms) claim that it is not completely clear which acoustic measure can describe /s/ in a more adequate manner and in order to address this issue, they propose a methodology that combines a perceptual and an acoustic analysis to describe the variation of /s/ in Spanish (Erker & Reffel ms). Even though the aim of this dissertation is different from the one in Erker & Reffel (ms), some of the practices that they describe for the acoustic analysis of /s/ could be applicable to it. First of all, Erker &
Reffel (ms) recommend that researchers segment fricatives manually. Erker (2010:17) explains that this can be done by looking at the spectrogram and waveform in Praat
(Boersma & Weenink 2017). Erker & Reffel claim that the manual segmentation takes longer than using alignment technologies but it is necessary in order to measure fricatives reliably (Erker & Reffel ms). As Erker & Reffel (ms) analyze the reduction of /s/ in
Spanish, they segment fricatives that are not deleted and they use a script to extract their acoustic properties. They recommend extracting the duration of the fricative as well as its 76 spectral properties, such as the CoG (as in Erker 2010). When extracting CoG values,
Erker & Reffel (ms) claim that there are certain details that should be taken into account.
First of all, voicing can lower down the CoG of fricatives (Jongman et al. 2000) and for that reason Erker & Reffel (ms) suggest that it could be a good idea to report the percentage of voicing during the fricative. Secondly, taking CoG values during different stages of the fricative can be helpful to capture it dynamically (Erker & Reffel ms).
Thirdly, given that the CoG varies based on speakers’ physical features, Erker & Reffel
(ms) suggest including the factor of “individual speaker” as a random effect in the regression model. Likewise, Hay (2011:212) recommends including “speaker” as a random effect in the mixed-effects modeling to make sure that the speech of a single informant does not influence the significance of the factors.
This dissertation uses the CoG as a measurement to determine whether speakers maintain the contrast in place of articulation when pronouncing fricatives and affricates in Basque or not. The CoG has been used by previous studies on Basque sibilants and it has been found to be one of the most important acoustic measurements to differentiate their three places of articulation (see Iglesias et al. 2016, Gaminde et al. 2013 or section
2.2.2.1). As recommended by Erker & Reffel (ms), the segmentation of the fricatives and affricates in this dissertation has been carried out manually. Moreover, as I explain in chapter 3, the script that I used to extract the acoustic properties of sibilants has a high- pass filter to avoid the interference of voicing on the CoG. With regards to the time point, the CoG was extracted from the durational midpoint of the fricative. Even though this dissertation does not measure the CoG at different stages during the fricative, it measures
77 it at the durational point where it is considered to have its “steady state” (Erker & Reffel ms). With regards to the effects of individual differences on the CoG, “speaker” has been added as a random effect in the statistical analysis, as I explain at the end of section 3.
Besides measuring the CoG, this dissertation measures the total duration of the sibilants as well as the duration of the stop and fricative phase in the case of the affricates. It also takes into account whether affricates are produced with a release burst or not. The analysis of speakers’ sibilants in Spanish carried out for this dissertation follows the same procedure as that for Basque sibilants.
2.3. Research Questions
This dissertation presents results from an acoustic study designed to answer the following research questions:
• What is the current status of the sibilant merger in Amorebieta-Etxano?
o What is the effect of speakers’ age and gender on the degree of merger or
maintenance of the contrast in the place of articulation of sibilants?
o What is the effect of the type of task and linguistic factors on the
production of Basque sibilants? More precisely, what is the effect of the
position of the sibilant in the word and in the syllable, the preceding
context, and the stress?
o What is the effect of minimal pairs containing and
production of Basque sibilants?
o What does the CoG tell us about the actual production of Basque sibilants?
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• Is the merger/maintenance of the places of articulation of Basque sibilants
influenced by the Basque-Spanish linguistic contact?
o What is the effect of speakers’ degree of linguistic dominance on the
degree of merger or maintenance of the contrast in the place of articulation
of Basque sibilants?
o Are Basque sibilants pronounced similarly or differently from the Spanish
sibilants?
o Does speakers’ degree of dominance influence the similarity/ difference in
the production of Basque and Spanish sibilants?
o Do speakers who are more dominant in Spanish use the same place of
articulation for their Basque and Spanish sibilants?
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CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY
This chapter of the dissertation describes the methodology that I followed to answer the research questions presented in chapter 2.
3.1. Data collection in Basque
All the informants are bilingual speakers of Basque and Spanish and they completed the
BLP Questionnaire (Birdsong et al. 2012, Gertken et al. 2014). The data was collected at two different times: the Summer of 2015 and the Summer of 2019. During the Summer of
2015, 32 informants were interviewed in Basque and the data of 26 of those speakers was analyzed as they were born in Amorebieta-Etxano, they had been part of the community during their whole lives, and they were still living there at the moment of the recording.
The data of 6 informants was excluded because they were born in other locations within the Basque Autonomous Community and they moved to Amorebieta-Etxano later on in life. In order to have an even number of male and female speakers for all age groups, two female informants were recorded completing tasks in Basque during the Summer of 2019 and their data was analyzed. Table 17 summarizes the age groups, year of the recordings, speaker ID, age, level of education, and overall BLP score for the informants who completed the tasks in Basque and were included in this dissertation.
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Age Date of the Speaker BLP Gender Age Level of education group recording ID score 2015 F2 26 College (B.A., B.S.) 65.562 2015 F1 22 Some college 20.66 Female 2015 F5 23 Some college 13.98 Group A: 2015 F4 20 Some college -3.272 18-34 2015 F3 22 College (B.A., B.S.) -20.352 years old 2015 M1 22 High school 118.416 (n=10) 2015 M2 21 Some college 56.484 Male 2015 M5 21 Vocational training 47.134 2015 M3 31 High school -0.918 2015 M4 33 Vocational training -26.708 2015 F12 46 College (B.A., B.S.) 52.03 2015 F9 37 College (B.A., B.S.) -3.542 Female 2015 F11 45 Less than high school -42.508 Group B: 2015 F10 48 High school -48.05 35-54 2015 F6 49 Less than high school -84.55 years old 2015 M9 51 Vocational training 91.262 (n=10) 2015 M6 51 College (B.A., B.S.) 62.108 Male 2015 M10 53 Vocational training 10.892 2015 M8 44 Vocational training -11.992 2015 M7 43 Masters -32.334 2019 F18 57 College (B.A., B.S.) 51.94 2015 F13 55 College (B.A., B.S.) 40.86 Female Group C: 2015 F16 61 College (B.A., B.S.) 28.516 55 years 2019 F19 66 Vocational training 10.344 old or 2015 M15 59 Vocational training 62.296 older 2015 M13 55 Vocational training -9.82 (n=8) Male 2015 M16 60 Some college -13.448 2015 M12 55 Vocational training -83.008 Table 17: Age group, gender, speaker ID, age, level of education, and BLP score of the informants who completed the tasks in Basque9
9 The informants included in age group A were the same ones who were included in the analysis of fricatives in Muxika-Loitzate (2017). 81
Informants who obtained a positive BLP score were more strongly dominant in
Basque and those who obtained a negative BLP score were more strongly dominant in
Spanish. The informants in each age and gender group have been listed in order from highest to lowest BLP scores in Table 17. In group A, there were three female speakers who were more strongly dominant in Basque and two females who were more strongly dominant in Spanish, and the same pattern was repeated among males in the same age group. With regards to group B, there was one female informant who was more strongly dominant in Basque and four female informants who were more strongly dominant in
Spanish. However, in the same age group there were three male informants who were more strongly dominant in Basque and two who were more strongly dominant in Spanish.
As for group C, all the female speakers were more strongly dominant in Basque. As for men, there was one male speaker who was more strongly dominant in Basque whereas the other three were more strongly dominant in Spanish. The BLP also allowed us to retrieve informants’ scores in the following four components: (a) language history, (b) use, (c) proficiency, and (d) attitudes. Informants’ responses for the language history component showed that group A had a higher mean score for Basque than the other two age groups. That was expected given that younger generations in the BAC are more likely to be exposed to Basque at school through Models D and B than speakers of older generations who attended school when those models did not exist. As for language use, group C had the highest mean scores for Basque from the three groups, followed by group A and finally, by group B. This finding was also expected, as Eustat (2017) reported that older generations of speakers used Basque more frequently than younger
82 generations. However, group B did not use Basque as much as group A and that would be unexpected given the findings in Eustat (2017). With regards to language proficiency, group A had the highest scores, which indicated that they self-rated themselves as more proficient in Basque than the other age groups. The scores for groups B and C were very similar, although group B had a slightly higher score than group C. The results for the component on linguistic attitudes showed that all groups obtained very high scores for
Basque and groups B and C obtained the highest scores. When comparing language attitudes in both languages, all groups had a higher BLP score in Basque than in Spanish, which meant that overall, they had a more positive attitude towards Basque than towards
Spanish. When looking at the results more closely, the majority of the informants (25 informants) obtained higher BLP scores for Basque than for Spanish, whereas two informants obtained equal scores in both languages and only one speaker obtained a higher score for Spanish than for Basque.
For the tasks in Basque, informants completed an interview, a read-aloud task, and a picture description task. First of all, the instructions were explained to informants in
Basque. The interview consisted of several questions in Basque that varied depending on informants’ age and they were created to elicit the vernacular variety of Basque spoken in
Amorebieta-Etxano. During the interview, informants needed to answer questions about their lives and their opinions about specific topics, such as the economic crisis in Spain or the festivals in Amorebieta-Etxano that were taking place at the moment of the recordings. Informants were reminded that there was no time limit for the interview and
83 they were encouraged to elaborate their responses. Appendix A contains the questions that informants of different age groups needed to answer in Basque.
For the second task, informants read sentences that contained 83 words with the three Basque fricatives represented by the graphemes ,
All minimal pairs were spelled with or
Jurado Noriega (2011) explained that there are not many minimal pairs containing
84 alveolar or the lamino-alveolar fricatives for diminutives or to express affection
(2003:39). This “affective palatalization” does not occur among speakers of Amorebieta-
Etxano and for that reason, they are not expected to use minimal pairs with this sound.
The stimuli were inserted in the middle of carrier sentences that had 6-8 syllables before and after the word of interest. All the carrier sentences were different from each other. The sentences were written in euskara batua ‘Standard Basque’ and the task was created to elicit the standard variety of the language. The following sentences illustrate the type of sentences that informants read. Sentence (1) focuses on the production of the fricative, whereas sentence (2) focuses on the production of the affricate. All the sentences from the reading task are available in Appendix B. Even though the words of interest appear underlined and in bold in (1) and (2), these words were not underlined in the task that informants completed.
(1) Mahastiaren inguruan hesi bat jarri duzue zuek. Vineyard-the-in around fence a put AUX you all ‘You (pl.) built a fence around the vineyard’.
(2) Txakurra ohean etzan zen astelehenean. Dog-the bed-the-in lie down-PRF AUX Monday-on ‘The dog lay in bed on Monday’.
The sentences were presented in random order and the order was the same for all informants. The sentences were divided into two blocks and informants had the opportunity to take a break between the two blocks. There were 18 informants who also read one repetition of each sentence, which means that those informants read four blocks
85 of sentences. The reading task also contained five distractors, such as the one in (3) below. The objective of including such distractors was to avoid that informants paid attention to their production of sibilants.
(3) Ikerrek behar duen erraketa Errumanian dago. Iker-ERG to need AUX-that racket Romania-in AUX ‘The racket that Iker needs is in Romania’.
The reading task had different characteristics for informant F18, who was recorded in 2019. More precisely, each sentence in the reading task of informant F18 contained two words of interest (instead of one) in order to shorten the duration of the task. However, the target words were exactly the same and the sounds of interest appeared in the exact same contexts as in the reading task that the rest of the informants completed in 2015. That is, they were preceded and followed by the same sounds as in the other reading task. The following sentence illustrates the type of sentences that informant F18 read:
(4) Idazleari ostiralean sei sari eman zizkioten. Writer-to Friday-on six award to give AUX ‘They gave six awards to the writer on Friday.’
The other informant who was recorded in 2019 (informant F19) did not complete the reading task due to her unfamiliarity with written standard Basque. The sentences were presented to informants in PowerPoint slides (Version 14.7.7) in a laptop.
Informants used a clicker to see the next slide and to be able to read the next sentence
86 without touching the laptop, which could create friction noise and hinder the segmentation of fricatives and affricates in Praat (Version 6.0.22).
For the third task, informants needed to describe seven pictures that they saw in slides. The pictures were created with the aim of eliciting the production of Basque fricatives and affricates among informants in a more informal setting than in the reading task. The advantage of using the picture description task was that it elicited the production of sibilants that are less frequent in speech.
All the informants in table 17 completed the interview, the reading task, and the picture description task, except for informant F19 who did not complete the reading task.
All the tasks were recorded in a quiet room in Amorebieta-Etxano using an external microphone connected to a laptop though USB. The recordings were made using
GarageBand (Version 10.0.2) at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. Given time constraints only the data from the interview and reading task were analyzed in this dissertation.
3.2. Data collection in Spanish
During the Summer of 2019, 34 informants completed three tasks in Spanish, although this dissertation analyzes the data of 24 of those informants. The criteria for choosing those informants were that they were born in Amorebieta-Etxano and they were still living in the town at the moment of the recording. The only exception was informant F20, who had just moved to a different town nearby but who was still visiting Amorebieta-
Etxano frequently and who was part of a group of friends there. The informants who were excluded spent their childhood outside Amorebieta-Etxano (either in a different part of
Bizkaia or outside Spain) and moved there later in life. Moreover, there were two 87 informants who fulfilled those requirements but whose data was not analyzed in this dissertation in order to have the same number of informants in each group.
When recruiting informants for the Spanish data during the Summer of 2019, the aim was to record the same informants that I had recorded in Basque in 2015. However, this was not always possible as there were informants who were not in town at the moment of the recordings and there were some informants who had moved to different parts of Spain. Consequently, there were only 14 informants who completed the recordings in 2015 and in 2019. Those informants are highlighted in gray color in table
18 below. The rest of the informants were selected following the criteria used to select informants during the Summer of 2015. Informants F2, F26, M15, and M18 reported that they had spent some time living outside Amorebieta-Etxano due to work and studies.
However, they were still included in this dissertation, as the time period that they spent living in other places constituted a small percentage of their lives and they were still connected to the community in Amorebieta-Etxano by going back to the town to visit their families and friends.
Each age and gender group had the same number of informants. In age group A there was a female speaker who was more dominant in Basque whereas the other three female informants were more dominant in Spanish. As for males in group A, there were two informants who were more dominant in Basque and two who were more dominant in
Spanish. In group B there were two female speakers who were more dominant in Basque and two female speakers who were more dominant in Spanish. With regards to male speakers in group B, there was an informant who was more dominant in Basque and three
88 who were more dominant in Spanish. As for age group C, there were two female informants who were more dominant in Basque and two female informants who were more dominant in Spanish, and the same pattern was repeated among male speakers.
Age Date of the Speaker BLP Gender Age Level of education group recording ID score 2019 F19 21 University Degree 13.166 2019 F20 27 Part of university studies -2.908 Female Group 2019 F18 26 University Degree -14.626 A: 2019 F1 26 Masters Degree -33.612 18-34 2019 M1 27 Vocational Training 58.48 years old 2019 M18 28 Masters Degree 11.804 (n=8) Male 2019 M5 25 Vocational Training -1.73 2019 M21 26 Vocational Training -19.71 2019 F23 47 Vocational Training 38.774 2019 F9 41 University Degree 17.71 Female 2019 F11 48 Vocational training -24.43 Group 2019 F10 52 Part of university studies -69.842 B: 35-54 2019 M20 53 Secondary School 31.6 years old Secondary school and (n=8) 2019 M3 35 -18.258 Male bachiller 2019 M4 37 Vocational studies -19.08 2019 M7 47 Masters Degree -54.126 2019 F16 65 University Degree 4.36 2019 F21 57 Vocational training 2.994 Female Group 2019 F26 74 University Degree -25.882 C: 55 2019 F27 61 Vocational studies -117.606 years old 2019 M6 55 University Degree 7.522 or older 2019 M15 63 Vocational Training 7.444 (n=8) Male 2019 M13 59 Vocational Training -52.766 2019 M12 58 Vocational Training -62.484 Table 18: Age groups, gender, speaker ID, age, level of education, and BLP score of the informants who completed the tasks in Spanish
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When looking at the results for each of the BLP components separately, the results resemble the ones reported for the informants in 2014. More specifically, informants’ results for the “Language history” component showed that informants who were younger than 35 years old (group A) had the highest score in Basque, followed by group B, and finally by group C. This is expected given that all the informants in group A reported to have pursued their studies in Model D, whereas this was not the case for groups B and C. Moreover, for the “Language Proficiency” component, group A had the highest scores in Basque, which indicated that they rated themselves as more proficient in
Basque than other groups. Group B had the second highest score for “Language
Proficiency” in Basque, whereas group C had the lowest proficiency score in Basque.
The overall results for “Language attitudes” were also similar for informants recorded in
2015 and 2019. More specifically, all groups had higher language attitudes in Basque than in Spanish. However, in 2019 group A had the highest score for their language attitudes in Basque, followed by group B, and finally by group C. When looking at the results of each of the informants for the “Language Attitudes” separately, 17 informants had higher scores for Basque than for Spanish, whereas 4 informants had equal scores for both languages. Three informants had a higher score for their language attitudes in
Spanish than in Basque and those informants were the ones who obtained overall BLP scores that indicated that they were more strongly dominant in Spanish than the rest of the informants. It should be noted here that the overall results for the “Language Use” component in Basque was different for informants recorded in 2019 than for those recorded in 2015. More precisely, group A had the highest “Language Use” score in
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Basque, followed by group B, and finally, by group C. This is unexpected as the census data shows that overall, older generations tend to speak Basque more frequently than younger generations in the Basque Autonomous Community (Eustat 2017). However, when looking at their overall BLP scores, the informants in 2019 and in 2015 are comparable.
The 14 informants who completed the tasks in both Basque and Spanish filled out two BLP Questionnaires: one in 2015 and the other in 2019. The aim of having those informants complete the BLP Questionnaire twice was to measure their linguistic dominance both times, given that informants can change their language dominance during their lives (Gertken et al. 2014). The overall BLP scores showed that in 2019, 11 informants continued being more strongly dominant in the same language as they were in
2015. However, there were 3 informants whose dominant language changed. More precisely, informants F1 and M5 from group A obtained overall BLP scores that indicated that they were more strongly dominant in Basque in 2015 whereas the scores from 2019 indicated that they more strongly dominant in Spanish. The main difference in the BLP results of informant F1 was that she reported to use Spanish more frequently in
2019 than in 2015 and she also reported to have a more positive attitude towards the language. This can be explained by looking at changes in the informant’s life. More precisely, after being recorded in 2015, informant F1 finished her university studies and started working in an environment where she reported to use Spanish 90% of the time.
This had a consequence in her BLP scores for language attitudes, as in 2015 her score for
Basque was much higher than for Spanish whereas she obtained the same scores in both
91 languages in 2019. As for informant M5, this informant reported to use Spanish 60% of the time in his work environment in 2019, whereas he used it less frequently in his previous job in 2015, where he used it only 10% of the time. Moreover, his results for the
“Language Attitudes” component changed from 2015 to 2019. Like informant F1, this informant obtained much higher scores for his Basque attitudes than for his Spanish attitudes in 2015 and the difference between the scores of the two languages was much smaller in 2019. Finally, the overall BLP score of informant F9 changed from -3.542 in
2015 to 17.71 in 2019. Taking in into account that BLP scores can go from -218 to 218, informant’s BLP scores do not change considerably. However, her scores indicate that she shifts from a more balanced bilingual to being more dominant in Basque. When having a closer look at her results for the different BLP components, the informant reported to use Basque much more frequently than Spanish in 2019, especially with her family; whereas the use of the two languages was more balanced in 2015. This also had an impact on her BLP scores for the component on “Language Attitudes”, as she had higher scores for Basque than for Spanish in 2019, whereas she had equal scores for both languages in 2015.
All informants completed three tasks in Spanish. Those tasks were an interview, a read-aloud task, and a picture-description task, as informants did during the Summer of
2015 in Basque. First of all, informants needed to complete an interview in Spanish.
During the interview they needed to answer questions about their opinion on different topics, such as online shopping, the use of the Basque language, the town of Amorebieta-
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Etxano, and public transportation. These questions varied depending on the age group and they are available in Appendix C.
For the reading task in Spanish, informants needed to read sentences that contained 36 words: 24 words contained the sibilant fricative /s/ represented by the grapheme and 12 words contained the affricate /͡tʃ/ represented by the grapheme
Spanish because there are only a few words that contain that sound in the coda and they are not frequent in speech. Table 19 below shows the words with the sounds of interest.
Word Str. Saca ‘take out’, seco ‘dry’, Chapa ‘metal tag’, choque initial, siglo ‘century’ ‘bump’, chicle ‘chewing gum’ onset Unstr. Salí ‘leave’, secó ‘dried’, Chaval ‘young man’, chocó sillón ‘armchair’ ‘bumped into’, chilló ‘shouted’ Word Str. Así ‘like this’, pesé ‘weighed’, Parchís ‘board game’, echó medial, pisar ‘step on’ ‘threw’, fichó ‘signed’ onset Unstr. Casi ‘almost’, ese ‘that’, lisa Hacha ‘ax’, hecho ‘made’, bicho ‘flat’ ‘bug’ Word Str. Vasco ‘Basque’, este ‘this’, medial, listo ‘ready’ coda Unstr. Mascó ‘chewed’, estén ‘are’, listón ‘standards’ Word Str. Atrás ‘back’, revés ‘upside final, down’, París ‘Paris’ coda Unstr. Arras ‘wedding coins’, lunes ‘Monday’, crisis ‘crisis’ Table 19: Target words with the sounds of interest in Spanish
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All the words had 2 syllables and they were inserted in different carrier sentences.
In order to shorten the task as much as possible, each sentence contained two target words. The following sentences illustrate the type of sentences that informants read.
(4) Marta mascó su chicle rápidamente. Marta chew-PRF her gum quickly ‘Marta chewed her gum quickly.’
(5) Pedro saca el hacha para cortar leña. Pedro takes out the ax to cut firewood ‘Pedro takes out the ax to cut firewood.’
There were 18 sentences and they are available in Appendix D. Informants read each sentence three times. The sentences were presented in random order in three blocks.
The order of the first block of sentences was repeated in the second and third blocks.
Each informant read a total of 54 sentences that contained 108 target words. The reading task also contained two distractors that can be seen in (6) and (7) below. The aim of including distractors was to draw informants’ attention to sounds that were not under study, such as /r/ or /x/.
(6) El chico recogió su raqueta del suelo. The boy pick up-PRF his racket from-the floor ‘The boy picked up his racket from the floor.’
(7) La chica jugó al ajedrez el jueves. The girl play-PRF to-the chess the Thursday ‘The girl played chess on Thursday.’
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As in the reading task in Basque, the Spanish sentences were presented to informants in PowerPoint slides (Version 14.7.7) in a laptop. Informants used a clicker to see the next slide and to be able to read the next sentence without touching the laptop, which could create friction noise and hinder the segmentation of fricatives and affricates in Praat (Version 6.0.22).
With regards to the third task, informants needed to describe what they saw in two pictures presented in different slides. The aim of this task was to elicit the production of
Spanish fricatives and affricates in a more informal setting than in the reading task.
Moreover, this task was used in 2019 to keep the methodology to collect the Spanish data similar to that followed to collect the Basque data in 2015.
All the informants in table 18 completed the interview, the reading task, and the picture description task. The recording procedure was the same in the data collection in
Summer 2015 and 2019. More precisely, all the tasks were recorded in a quiet room in
Amorebieta-Etxano using an external microphone connected to a laptop through USB. In
2019, the recordings were made using Audacity (Version 2.1.2), and the sampling rate was 44.1 kHz, the same as in 2015. Given time constraints only the data from the interview and reading task in Spanish were analyzed in this dissertation, as I did when analyzing the Basque data.
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3.3. Data Analysis
3.3.1. Acoustic Analysis
The sounds of interest were segmented manually using Praat (Version 6.0.22). In order to do that, I followed the criteria established by Turk et al. (2006). According Turk et al.
(2006) sibilants and affricates can be segmented in a reliable manner in most contexts
(2006:5). According to the authors, when fricatives appear in intervocalic contexts they can be segmented taking into account the beginning and end of frication noise (2006:10).
Additionally, the beginning and end of the vocalic formants can also help to segment fricatives in intervocalic contexts (Turk et al. 2006:10). Consequently, the onset of intervocalic fricatives was segmented when the frication noise started in the spectrogram and the waveform and when the vowel formants stopped being visible in the spectrogram.
The offset of the fricative was segmented when the frication noise decreased and the vowel formants started being visible (2006:10). Figure 4 shows the segmentation of the fricative in the word hazi ‘to grow’ in Basque. It should be noted here that the orthography of fricatives and affricates was used to label the sounds in Praat, instead of using the IPA symbols.
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Figure 4: Segmentation of the fricative in the word hazi ‘to grow’ as said by informant M4 in the reading task in Basque
The same procedure was followed to segment fricatives in Spanish. Figure 5 below is an example of the segmentation of the fricative in the word seco ‘dry’ in
Spanish.
Figure 5: Segmentation of the fricative in the word seco ‘dry’ as said by informant F26 in the reading task in Spanish
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Moving on to affricates in intervocalic position, the criteria followed to segment them is the same followed to segment stops and fricatives, given that affricates are a combination of a stop and a fricative (Turk et al. 2006:11-12). Consequently, the two parts of the affricate (the stop phase and the fricative phase) were segmented in this dissertation. The onset of the stop phase was segmented when there was a decrease in the amplitude and when the harmonic energy and formants were not visible (Turk et al.,
2006:6). The offset of the stop phase was segmented when there was a release burst (Turk et al., 2006:7). There were 867 instances (out of 2,213 tokens of Basque affricates) where there was no release burst and in those cases the offset of the stop was segmented immediately before the frication noise began. The fricative phase of the affricate was segmented using the same procedure as for the fricatives explained above. Figure 6 below shows the segmentation of the affricate in the word utzi ‘to lend’.
Figure 6: Segmentation of the affricate in the word utzi ‘to lend’ as said by informant M4 in the reading task in Basque
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The same procedure was followed to segment affricates in Spanish. Figure 7 shows the segmentation of the affricate in the word choque ‘bump’ in Spanish.
Figure 7: Segmentation of the affricate in the word choque ‘bump’ as said by informant F26 in the reading task in Spanish
As for fricatives and affricates that are preceded by sonorant consonants (such as
/l/ or /n/), Turk et al. (2006) claimed that they can be segmented in a reliable manner
(2006:5). In this dissertation, the onset of fricatives that were preceded by a sonorant consonant was segmented when the frication noise started in the spectrogram and the waveform. Figure 8 shows the segmentation of the fricative in the phrase eman zidan soineko hau ‘gave me this dress’, where the fricative is preceded by /n/.
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Figure 8: Segmentation of the fricative in the phrase eman zidan soineko hau ‘gave me this dress’ as said by informant F2 in the reading task in Basque
In the case of sibilants fricatives preceded by a stop, the onset of the fricative was segmented when the frication noise started. Moreover, there were cases in which the velar stop /k/ was elided before the fricative and in those cases the fricative was segmented following the same criteria as in intervocalic contexts. Figure 9 below shows an example of /k/ deletion before a fricative in the sentence bere jarreragatik zigor espediente bat dauka ‘she/ he has a disciplinary record because of her/ his attitude.’
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Figure 9: Segmentation of the fricative in the sentence bere jarreragatik zigor espediente bat dauka ‘she/ he has a disciplinary record because of her/ his attitude’ as said by informant M1 in the reading task in Basque
In the case of affricates preceded by sonorant consonants, the onset of the stop phase was segmented when the formants (except for the lowest formant and the harmonic energy) stopped being visible (Turk et al., 2006:6). Figure 10 shows the segmentation of the affricate in the word entzun ‘to hear’, where the affricate is preceded by /n/.
Figure 10: Waveform, spectrogram, and textgrid of the word entzun ‘to hear’ 101
As for affricates preceded by stops, Turk et al. (2006) claimed that the segmentation of affricates in this context should be avoided due to the difficulty to do it in a reliable manner (Turk et al. 2006:5). Consequently, the only stimulus that contained an affricate and appeared in that context was excluded from this dissertation.
Additionally, affricates that were pronounced with a preceding pause were excluded from the analysis for the same reason. Finally, affricates that were pronounced without a stop phase were excluded from this dissertation.
As for the following sound, when the fricative or affricate was followed by a consonant, the offset of the fricative phase was segmented when the frication noise decreased. Figure 11 shows the segmentation of the fricative in the word asko ‘a lot’, where the fricative precedes the voiceless stop /k/.
Figure 11: Segmentation of the fricative in the word asko ‘a lot’ as said by informant F3 in the reading task
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Given time constraints, this dissertation focuses on the data from the interview and the reading task, and it does not consider the data from the picture description task.
All the stimuli in the reading task were acoustically analyzed. With regards to the interviews, a maximum of 20 tokens per grapheme (
After completing the segmentation of sibilants, a script was used to automatically extract the acoustic values from the audio files. The acoustic measures were the CoG and the duration of the fricatives and affricates. As I explained in section 2.2.1, the CoG measures “how high the frequencies in a spectrum are on average” (Boersma & Weenink
2007) and it provides information about the place of articulation of affricates and fricatives. More specifically, the CoG is higher for sounds that are produced at the front of the oral cavity and it is lower for sounds that are produced more at the back of the oral cavity. A script extracted the CoG values from the middle of fricatives or from the middle of the fricative phase of affricates. A 300Hz high-pass filter was used in order to avoid interference in the COG value from any possible voicing during the fricative. The CoG is the focus of this dissertation since it has successfully differentiated the three places of articulation of Basque fricatives and affricates in previous studies (Iglesias et al. 2016).
With regards to duration, the script extracted the total duration of fricatives as well as the durations of the stop phase and fricative phase of affricates. The duration of the stop
103 phase and fricative phase allowed me to calculate the total duration of affricates using a spreadsheet. The duration was considered to be an additional measure in this dissertation, since there is no evidence in previous studies to show that informants could be using duration as an acoustic cue to differentiate Basque sibilants (Urrutia et al. 1988, Gaminde et al. 2013, Gandarias et al. 2014, Iglesias et al. 2016). The same acoustic measurements
(CoG and duration) were used to analyze the sibilants of Spanish.
3.3.2. Independent variables and statistical treatment
First of all, the aim of the analysis of Basque affricates was to explore the effect of the following independent variables on the dependent variables (CoG and duration).
1. Grapheme
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It should be noted here that the position in the syllable and the word was not included as an independent variable in the analysis of affricates because the data for that variable was not equally distributed. More precisely, there were no words with
With regards to the variable of preceding context, the rationale for coding preceding high vowels and non-high vowels (mid/ low vowels) separately was that previous studies (Zuazo 2017) claimed that they could have a different effect on the production of affricates and fricatives. More specifically, high vowels could have an effect on the CoG of sibilants as it may cause the palatalization of the following sibilant.
As for the analysis of Basque fricatives, it aims to explore the effect of the following independent variables on the dependent variables (the CoG and the duration of
Basque fricatives).
1. Grapheme hasi ‘to begin’
Group B 35-54 years old Group C older than 54 years old 5. Position of the fricative in the syllable and the word Onset initial zu ‘you’, saku ‘bag’, xede ‘aim’ Onset medial bizi ‘to live’, oso ‘very’, kaxa ‘box’ Coda azkena ‘last’, asko ‘a lot’, pixka ‘a little’, noiz ‘when’ 6. Preceding context Consonant Amaiaren zain ‘waiting for Amaia’, eman zidan soineko hau ‘gave me this dress’, gazteek xarma … daukate ‘young people have … charm’ High vowel izan ‘to be’, isil ‘quiet’, gaixo ‘sick’ Low and mid vowel pozik ‘happy’, esate ‘saying’, baxua ‘short’ Pause zoragarria ‘wonderful’ 7. Stress Stressed zazpi ‘seven’, saman ‘in the neck’, baxua ‘short’ Unstressed gaztelu ‘castle’, eskua ‘hand’, xaboi ‘soap’ 8. Task Reading task Interview
In the variable of position in the syllable and the word, the grapheme
A separate analysis was carried out in order to explore whether minimal pairs had an effect on the production of fricatives or not. In order to do that a subset of the data containing only the graphemes and
1. Status of minimal pair or not Minimal pair hasi ‘to begin’, hazi ‘to grow’ Non-minimal pair oso ‘very’, eskua ‘hand’
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2. Grapheme hasi ‘to begin’ 3. Informants’ language dominance as determined by the overall BLP score 4. Age Group Group A 18-34 years old Group B 35-54 years old Group C older than 54 years old
Moving onto the data on the Spanish affricates, this dissertation explores the effect of the following independent variables on the dependent variables.
1. Informants’ language dominance as determined by the overall BLP score 2. Gender Female Male 3. Age Group Group A 18-34 years old Group B 35-54 years old Group C older than 54 years old 4. Position of the affricate in the syllable and the word Onset initial chaval ‘young man’ Onset medial bicho ‘bug’ 5. Preceding context Consonant el chaval ‘the young man’ High vowel fichó ‘signed’ Low and mid vowel autos de choque ‘bumping cars’ 6. Stress Stressed echó ‘threw’ Unstressed hecho ‘done’ 7. Task Reading task Interview
As for fricatives, the aim was to explore the effect of the following independent variables on the CoG and the duration.
1. Informants’ language dominance as determined by the overall BLP score 2. Gender Female Male 107
3. Age Group Group A 18-34 years old Group B 35-54 years old Group C older than 54 years old 4. Position of the affricate in the syllable and the word Onset initial sillón ‘armchair’ Onset medial lisa ‘flat’ Coda medial vasco ‘Basque’ Word final lunes ‘Monday’ 5. Preceding context Consonant pienso ‘I think’ High vowel listo ‘ready’ Low and mid vowel este ‘this’ 6. Stress Stressed seco ‘dry’ Unstressed secó ‘dried’ 7. Task Reading task Interview
The statistical analyses were carried out using the R Project for Statistical
Computing (Version 3.3.2). First, mixed-effects linear regression modeling was carried out in order to analyze the effects of the independent variables on the CoG and duration, and to evaluate whether the interactions between the variables had an effect on the acoustic measurements. Word and speaker were included as random factors. According to Hay (2011), one of the advantages of using mixed-effects modeling is to be able to use random effects, which she defined as “groupings in the data that are not generalizable to the wider population” (2011:212). In the case of analyses on sociophonetic variation, Hay
(2011) claims that “speaker” and “identity of a word” are considered to be the random effects, as they have an effect on variation but they are not generalizable to new speakers or words (2011:212). Hay (2011) explains that including speaker and word as random
108 effects in the model avoids the possibility that a single word or informant may be influencing the significance of an effect (2011:212).
When performing the mixed-effects linear regression modeling, the step function was used to know which variables needed to be included in the model. In the case of the
CoG and the duration of Basque fricatives, the predictors included in the step function were gender, BLP score, grapheme, task, stress, position, preceding context, age group, and the following interactions: grapheme*preceding context, grapheme*age group, grapheme*stress, grapheme*BLP score, gender*BLP score, age group*BLP score, age group*BLP score*grapheme, gender*grapheme, task*grapheme, gender*BLP*grapheme.
As for the CoG and duration of affricates, the predictors included in the step function were gender, BLP score, grapheme, task, stress, age group, preceding context, and the following interactions: grapheme*preceding, grapheme*age group, grapheme*stress, grapheme*BLP score, gender*BLP score, group*BLP score*grapheme, gender*grapheme, task*grapheme, gender*BLP*grapheme. As for the CoG and duration of the Spanish fricative, the predictors included in the step function were BLP score, task, gender, stress, position in the syllable and the word, preceding context, age group, and the following interactions: age group*BLP, and gender*BLP. The same predictors were included in the step function in the analysis of Spanish affricates.
After the step function, each model was built by adding the independent variables stepwise. ANOVA was used to compare the different models. The statistical significance level was set at p<0.05. The statistical analyses for Basque fricatives and affricates were the same and the only difference was that the factor of position in the syllable and the
109 word was not included as a variable in the analysis of affricates. Moreover, the statistical analyses performed to explore the Spanish fricatives and affricates were the same ones as the ones followed to explore the Basque sibilants and the only difference was that the variable of phoneme was not included, as only one fricative and one affricate were analyzed.
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CHAPTER 4. RESULTS
4.1. Results for Basque
This section summarizes the results for fricatives and affricates in Basque.
4.1.1. Results for Basque affricates
4.1.1.1. The CoG of Basque affricates
The final token count for affricates was 2,213. The factors that were included when building the regression models are available in section 3.3.2 of the dissertation. The best fit model in the analysis of the CoG of affricates included the variables of gender, task, grapheme, BLP score, age group, and the following interactions: gender*BLP score, grapheme*age group, and grapheme*BLP score. Table 20 shows the results of the best fit model.
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Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 6512.8896 705.9826 9.225 1.15e-09*** Gender (reference level is female) Male -2513.1780 712.7363 -3.526 0.001892** Task (reference level is interview) Reading task 564.4452 151.4097 3.728 0.000313*** Grapheme (reference level is
First of all, table 20 shows that the difference between females and males was statistically significant (p=0.001892). More precisely, female speakers had a higher mean
CoG (8202.814 Hz) than male speakers (5283.635 Hz), as can be seen in table 21 below.
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Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Female speakers 8202.814 2561.220 Male speakers 5283.635 2291.851 Table 21: Mean CoG and standard deviation for affricates among female and male speakers
Table 20 shows that the difference between the reading task and the interview was statistically significant (p=0.000313). The mean CoG was higher in the reading task than in the interview, as can be seen in table 22.
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Interview 6689.292 2956.241 Reading task 6854.258 2806.940 Table 22: Mean CoG and standard deviation for affricates in the interview and the reading task
As for grapheme, table 20 shows that the difference between
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Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation
Table 20 shows that the factor of BLP score was not statistically significant by itself. However, the tendency is that informants who obtained positive BLP scores (which meant that they were more strongly dominant in Basque) had higher CoG values than informants who obtained negative BLP scores.
As for the effects of age, the difference in the mean CoG between the age group A
(18-34 years old) and the age group B (34-54 years old) was not statistically significant.
Likewise, the difference between the age group B and the age group C (+54 years old) was not statistically significant. When releveling the factor of age group, the difference between the age group A and the age group C was not statistically significant either.
The interaction between gender and BLP score was not statistically significant either. However, when looking at the results in more detail, female speakers tended to have higher CoG values as their BLP increased whereas this was not the case among male speakers.
As for the interaction between age group and grapheme, table 24 shows the mean
CoG results for each grapheme among informants in each age group. The results showed that the differences in the mean CoG values among the three affricates were bigger in age
114 groups B and C, whereas they were smaller in age group A. Moreover, in age groups B and C, grapheme
Grapheme Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation
The results are also represented using multiple density plots created in R (as in
Beristain 2018b). According to the R graph gallery (Holtz 2018), density plots allow to represent how a numeric variable is distributed. In this dissertation, density plots are used to visualize how the CoG values of the sounds under study are distributed. Based on the studies mentioned in chapter 2, one would expect the COG for
COG of
Figure 12: Density plot of the affricates among age group A (18-34 years old)
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However, when looking at the results for males and females separately, it is clear that the two peaks for
Figure 13: Density plot of the affricates for female speakers in age group A
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Figure 14: Density plot of the affricates for male speakers in age group A
With regards to the density plot of age group B (34-54 years old) seen in figure
15, the three graphemes showed a high degree of overlap. More precisely, most of the tokens with the graphemes
(around 5000 Hz). In the case of tokens with
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Figure 15: Density plot of the affricates among age group B (34-54 years old)
As for the density plot for speakers who are older than 54 years old in figure 16, the distribution for tokens containing
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Figure 16: Density plot of the affricates among age group C (+54 years old)
Overall, the density plots show that there is a high degree of overlap in the production of the three affricates across the three age groups, although group C (older than 54 years old) showed a different production for
C was statistically significant (p=0.0016202).
As for the interaction between grapheme and BLP score, the CoG of
Figure 17: Density plot of the affricates among Spanish dominant speakers
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However, the density plot for Basque dominant speakers in figure 18 shows that they had different distributions for their affricates. More specifically, the distribution of
Figure 18: Density plot of the affricates among Basque dominant speakers
When dividing the Basque dominant group further into female speakers and male speakers, Basque dominant speakers still showed a pattern in their distribution of
Figure 19: Density plot of the affricates among Basque dominant female speakers
Figure 20 shows the density plot of male informants who were more dominant in
Basque. As can be seen in the figure, Basque dominant male speakers pronounced
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Figure 20: Density plot of the affricates among Basque dominant male speakers
In summary, the analysis of the density plots showed that Basque dominant speakers produced a contrast in their pronunciation of affricates as reflected on their
COG values that Spanish dominant speakers did not pronounce.
4.1.1.2. The duration of Basque affricates
The best fit model for the total duration of the affricates included the factors of age group, task, preceding context, grapheme, BLP score, and the following interactions: preceding context*grapheme, grapheme*BLP score. Table 25 below shows the results of the best fit model for the total duration of affricates.
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Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 97.64793 5.45788 17.891 <2e-16*** Age group (reference level is age group B 35-54) Age group C (+54) 7.08264 6.32591 1.120 0.273538 Age group A (18-34) -24.62249 6.06459 -4.060 0.000449*** Task (reference level is interview) Reading 16.23085 2.12516 7.637 2.47e-12*** Preceding context (reference level is consonant) High vowel 6.54049 5.62110 1.164 0.247331 Non-high vowel 14.12778 5.29448 2.668 0.008519** Grapheme (reference level is
Table 25: Results of the best fit model for affricate duration
Table 25 shows that the difference in the total duration of affricates between the age group B (35-54 years old) and the age group C (+54 years old) was not statistically
125 significant. However, the difference between the age group B and the age group A (18-34 years old) was statistically significant (p=0.000449). When relevelling the factor, the difference between the age group C and the age group A was statistically significant
(p=3.83e-05). As can be seen in table 26, the results showed that age group C had the longest mean affricate duration of the three groups whereas age group A had the shortest mean duration. The mean duration of the affricates of group B fell in between that of age groups A and C.
Mean total duration (ms) Standard Deviation Age group A (18-34) 95.212 25.141 Age group B (35-54) 121.756 27.130 Age group C (+54) 125.066 31.109 Table 26: Mean total duration and standard deviation of affricates for the three age groups
As for the effect of task, the difference between the reading task and the interview was statistically significant (p=2.47e-12). As table 27 shows, the mean total duration of affricates was longer in the reading task than in the interview.
126
Mean total duration (ms) Standard Deviation Interview 99.832 25.011 Reading task 113.461 31.250 Table 27: Mean total duration and standard deviation of affricates in the interview and reading task.
With regards to preceding context, the difference between preceding consonant and preceding high vowel was not statistically significant. However, the difference between preceding consonant and preceding non-high vowel was statistically significant
(p=0.008519). When relevelling the factor, the difference between preceding high and non-high vowel was not statistically significant. As table 28 shows, the mean duration of the affricate was longer when it was preceded by a non-high vowel than when it was preceded by a high vowel or a consonant.
Mean total duration (ms) Standard Deviation Preceding consonant 104.864 27.944 Preceding high vowel 112.314 30.085 Preceding non-high vowel 115.448 32.566 Table 28: Mean total duration and standard deviation of affricates according to preceding context.
127
As for the effect of grapheme, the difference between
Mean total duration (ms) Standard Deviation
The interaction between preceding context and grapheme was also statistically significant. When looking at the overall duration means in table 30,
128
Mean total Standard
duration (ms) Deviation Preceding consonant 102.510 27.413
As for the BLP, its effect on the affricate duration was statistically significant
(p=0.024340). The interaction between grapheme and BLP score was also statistically significant. The results in figure 21 show that the duration of
129
Figure 21: Plot and regression line for the duration of
With regards to the different phases of affricates, the results showed that as
4.1.1.3. The palatalized /t/
In this dissertation there was an affricate that was used differently among older generations than among younger generations of speakers. According to Etxebarria
(1984), some speakers who were born between 1882-1923 in Amorebieta-Etxano palatalized /t/ in Basque. As explained in chapter 2, Etxebarria used to represent this sound, which was preceded by the high front vowel /i/. Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina
(2003:38) referred to this phenomenon as “conditioned palatalization” (2003:37) and claimed that the palatalized /t/ is pronounced as a voiceless palatal stop. However,
Hualde (2010) classified it as an affricate based on its spectrographic analysis (2010:99).
130
According to Hualde (2010), the palatalized /t/ merged with
1960s or 1970s and there are certain varieties of Basque that pronounce it as a voiceless prepalatal affricate [t͡ ʃ]. However, this palatalized /t/ was not present in the speech of two speakers from Amorebieta-Etxano who were born in 1987 and 1989, based on Gaminde’s transcriptions (2010) of their pronunciation of the word iturria in Basque, which they pronounced as [i.ˈtu.ri.e]. In accordance with previous descriptions, only some of the older speakers palatalized /t/ in this dissertation. More precisely, there were five male speakers in this dissertation (M8, M9, M10, M12, and M15) who palatalized /t/, and four of those speakers pronounced some tokens as affricates. All of them were 44 years old or older. Informants M8 and M12 were more strongly dominant in Spanish whereas informants M9, M10, and M15 were more strongly dominant in Basque. This conditioned palatalization was not present among younger speakers or among any female speakers in this dissertation.
It should be noted here that there were 19 tokens that contained a palatalized /t/ and only 6 of them were pronounced as an affricate, whereas the other 13 tokens were pronounced as stops. The 19 tokens had a preceding high front vowel /i/ and occurred in post-tonic positions. The majority of the tokens came from the same words as there were
10 repetitions of the verb egiten ‘do’ and its derived forms, and 4 repetitions of the adjective polita ‘beautiful’. Table 31 below summarizes the details of informants who used the palatalized /t/ in the interview.
131
Number of Number of tokens tokens with an Number of tokens with a palatalized affricate BLP with a palatalized Informant Age /t/ in the interview corresponding score /t/ pronounced as (pronounced as to
M8 44 -11.992 3 2 2 M9 51 91.262 5 1 7 M10 53 10.892 3 1 9 M12 55 -83.008 7 2 4 M15 59 62.296 1 0 6 Table 31: Details of informants who used the palatalized /t/ in the interview
The 6 tokens of the palatalized /t/ pronounced as an affricate are analyzed separately in this section. Given the limited number of tokens, it was not possible to conduct a statistical analysis of the data. However, the mean CoG of those tokens was compared to the mean CoG of
M12 had a lower CoG for his palatalized /t/ than for
132
summary, the results in this section suggest that informants M9 and M12 used a
prepalatal affricate as an allophone to pronounce /t/ after the high front vowel, as
described by previous studies.
Tokens of the Tokens of the palatalized /t/ Tokens of the affricate affricate pronounced as an corresponding to
As for duration, all informants had a much shorter duration for their palatalized /t/
pronounced as an affricate than for their
This section provides some insight into the production of the palatalized /t/ but further
studies should analyze this sound in more detail by looking at a higher number of tokens
among more informants.
4.1.2. Results for Basque fricatives
This section summarizes the results of the CoG and total duration of Basque fricatives.
133
4.1.2.1. The CoG of Basque fricatives
The best fit model for Basque fricatives included gender, task, grapheme, stress, preceding context, BLP score, age group, and these interactions: gender*BLP score, grapheme*BLP score, task*grapheme, grapheme*age group, BLP score*age group, and grapheme*BLP score*age group. Table 33 summarizes the results of the best fit model.
Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 5973.9487 623.2696 9.585 7.87e-10***
Gender (reference level is female) Male -1714.9205 689.1397 -2.488 0.021749* Task (reference level is interview) Reading task 410.1606 154.6609 2.652 0.008239** Grapheme (reference level is )
134
Table 33 continued
Age group (reference level is age group B 35-54) Age group C +54 673.4003 857.9331 0.785 0.441505 Age group A 18-34 -245.6508 790.9854 -0.311 0.759302 Gender*BLP score (reference level is female) Male*BLP score -26.5106 15.2908 -1.734 0.098355 Grapheme*BLP score (reference level is ) ) Reading* and age group B 35-54) and age group B 35-54)
135
First of all, the difference between the CoG of males and females was statistically significant (p=0.021749). As can be seen in table 34, female speakers had higher CoG values than male speakers, as we saw for affricates.
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Female speakers 6429.382 2247.675 Male speakers 4420.033 2416.290 Table 34: Mean CoG and standard deviation for fricatives among female and male speakers
The difference between the reading task and the interview was also statistically significant (p=0.008239). As table 35 shows the CoG was higher in the reading task than in the interview.
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Interview 4756.971 2544.294 Reading task 5652.474 2499.438 Table 35: Mean CoG and standard deviation for fricatives in the interview and the reading task
As for the factor of grapheme, the difference between the graphemes and and
136 was not statistically significant. When relevelling the factor, the difference between fell in between that of
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation 5336.772 2475.263
When looking at the density plot of .
137
Figure 22: Density plot of the fricatives
The factor of stress on the CoG was not statistically significant. As for preceding context, the difference between the CoG of fricatives that had a preceding consonant and the CoG of fricatives that had a preceding high vowel (/i, u/) was statistically significant
(p=0.002967). However, the difference between a preceding consonant and a preceding pause was not statistically significant. Likewise, the difference between a preceding consonant and a preceding non-high vowel (/a, e, o/) was not statistically significant.
When relevelling the factor, the difference between preceding high vowel and preceding non-high vowel was statistically significant (p=0.011056). The difference between a preceding pause and a preceding high vowel was statistically significant (p=0.001434).
The difference between a preceding pause and a preceding non-high vowel was also statistically significant (p=0.022394). Figure 23 below shows the mean CoG values of
138 fricatives according to preceding context. The overall results showed that the mean CoG was the highest when there was a preceding consonant and it was the lowest when there was a preceding high vowel. The CoG of sibilants preceded by non-high vowels and pauses fell in between those of sibilants with a preceding high vowel and sibilants with a preceding consonant.
Figure 23: Graph with the mean CoG of fricatives according to preceding context
The factor of BLP score was not statistically significant by itself, although the tendency was that informants with a higher BLP score also had higher CoG values.
As for the factor of age group, the difference between age group A (18-43 years old) and age group C (older than 54 years old) was not statistically significant. Likewise,
139 the difference between age group B (35-54 years old) and age group A was not statistically significant. When relevelling this factor, the difference between age group C and age group B was not statistically significant. In summary, none of the age group comparisons was statistically significant.
With regards to the interaction between gender and BLP score, the difference on the CoG of males and females based on the BLP was not statistically significant. As for the interaction between grapheme and the BLP score, the mean CoG of
BLP score increased.
Figure 24: Plot and regression line of a subset of the data with
140
Likewise, the CoG of increased as the BLP score increased as can be seen in
Figure 25 below. However, the regression line is not as steep for as it is for
Figure 24, which indicates that the CoG increase is not as big as for
Figure 25: Plot and regression line of a subset of the data with
As can be seen in figure 26, the CoG of
BLP increases, and the regression line is almost flat, as can be seen in Figure 20 below.
Figures 24, 25, and 26 allow us to visualize the significance of the interaction between
BLP scores and graphemes. More precisely, the plots suggest that the difference between
141
Figure 26: Plot and regression line of a subset of the data with
The interaction between task and grapheme is further explored using pairwise comparisons. The comparisons showed that all the grapheme comparisons in the reading task were statistically significant. However, in the interview, the comparison between
was not statistically significant, whereas the other two grapheme comparisons were statistically significant. Table 37 shows that the mean CoG of
The mean CoG of was in between that of were very similar,
142 which shows that they were pronounced alike. However, unlike in the reading task, the
CoG of in the interview.
Grapheme Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation 5557.284 2447.201 4819.918 2466.034
The results in Table 37 suggest that informants kept a more robust contrast between
The interaction between grapheme and age group was further explored using post hoc comparisons. The comparisons showed that in the age group A only the comparison between
143 difference between was statistically significant (p=0.0262576). The other comparison were not statistically significant. In age group C, the comparison between
and was not statistically significant. Table 38 shows the mean CoG for the three graphemes for the three age groups. In age groups A and C fell in between that of and
Grapheme Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation 5292.113 2912.246 (18-34) 4846.503 1649.653 (35-54) 6178.041 2362.805
144
As for the interaction between BLP score and age group, the tendency is that the
CoG increased in each group as the BLP score got higher whereas the CoG decreased as the BLP score got lower. However, the comparisons between age groups were not statistically significant. As for the interaction between grapheme, BLP, and age group, the overall results for age group A showed that the contrast between
B. Moreover, the regression line for and that is because it was pronounced with a lower CoG regardless of informants’ BLP scores.
145
Figure 27: Scatterplots for the CoG of
Figure 28 combines the results of the three age groups in each scatterplot and it shows that informants from age group C (represented in green in figure 28) pronounced
with a similar CoG range whereas they pronounced
However, speakers from the younger age group A (represented in blue in Figure 28) who obtained negative BLP scores had similar CoG ranges for
146 with a lower CoG than
F4 (BLP:-3.272), M3 (BLP:-0.918), F1 (BLP: 20.660), M5 (BLP:47.134), F2 (BLP:
65.562) and M1 (BLP: 118.416). In the case of the age group B (represented in red in
Figure 28), the following informants pronounced the graphemes
Figure 28: Scatter plots for
To conclude this section, I will discuss the CoG values of one informant: informant M6. The results of this informant are analyzed separately because he was the only informant who had very different CoG values for the three fricatives. Informant M6 was 51 years old when he was recorded in 2015. He was strongly dominant in Basque when he completed the BLP Questionnaire in 2015 and in 2019. When he completed the tasks in Basque in 2015, his BLP score was 62.108. His mean CoG values for and
CoG.
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation 6630.834 1631.2256
When looking at the strip chart of informant M6 in figure 29, it is clear that the distribution of
148
Figure 29: Strip chart for
When analyzing the affricates of informant M6, the results showed that he maintained the contrast between the three affricates too. As table 40 shows, informant
M6 pronounced
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation
149
Figure 30 is the strip chart for the CoG of
Figure 30: Strip chart for
It should be noted here that after completing the three tasks, the informant was asked about his origin again to double-check that he was from Amorebieta-Etxano and not from a different region where speakers do not merge any of their sibilants. Informant
M6 confirmed that he had always lived in Amorebieta-Etxano. After analyzing the data, a follow up interview was created in order to understand why his pronunciation was
150 different from that of other informants. In the interview, informant M6 explained that maintaining the contrast between sibilants was important for his profession and that he made an effort to learn the contrast while he took Basque courses for adults during three years together with speakers from Nafarroa and Gipuzkoa who did not have the merger.
4.1.2.2. The duration of Basque fricatives
This section summarizes the results for the duration of Basque fricatives. The best fit model in the analysis of Basque fricatives included the factors of age group, task, preceding context, grapheme, and the following interactions: task*grapheme and age group*grapheme. Table 41 summarizes the results of the best fit model.
Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 92.847 5.726 16.214 <2e-16*** Age group (reference level is age group B 35-54) Age group C (+54) 7.290 6.812 1.070 0.293869 Age group A (18-34) -25.473 6.362 -4.004 0.000454*** Task (reference level is interview) Reading task 15.391 2.755 5.586 2.97e-08*** Preceding context (reference level is preceding consonant) Preceding high vowel -9.474 3.621 -2.617 0.009178** Preceding pause 19.486 6.349 3.069 0.002182** Preceding non-high vowel -7.931 3.400 -2.333 0.020113* Continued Table 41: Results of the best fit model for the duration of Basque fricatives
151
Table 41 continued
Grapheme (reference level is ) ) Reading task*) Age group C*
First of all, the difference between age groups C and B was not statistically significant. However, the difference between age groups B and A was statistically significant (p=0.000454). When relevelling the factor, the difference between age groups
A and C was also statistically significant (p=4.89e-05). As can be seen in Table 42, the overall duration results showed that fricatives had the longest duration among the age group C, followed by the group B, whereas the age group A had a shorter duration.
152
Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation Age group A 83.948 29.837 (18-34) Age group B 107.527 36.229 (35-54) Age group C 114.465 38.371 (+54) Table 42: Mean duration and standard deviation of fricatives for the three age groups
As for the effects of task, the difference in the duration of fricatives in the reading task and the interview were statistically significant (p=2.97e-08). As can be seen in table
43, fricatives had shorter durations in the interview than in the reading task.
Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation Interview 85.673 37.803 Reading task 102.562 35.082 Table 43: Mean duration and standard deviation of fricatives for the interview and the reading task
With regards to the effects of preceding context, the difference in the duration of fricatives when there was a preceding consonant and when there was a preceding high vowel was statistically significant (p=0.009178). Likewise, the difference in the duration when there was a preceding consonant and a preceding pause was statistically significant
(p=0.002182). The difference between preceding consonant and preceding pause was
153 also statistically significant (p=0.02011). When relevelling the factor, the difference between a preceding high vowel and a preceding pause was statistically significant (p=
7.57e-07). However, the difference between a preceding high vowel and a preceding non- high vowel was not statistically significant. Finally, the difference between a preceding pause and a preceding non-high vowel was statistically significant (p=1.79e-06). Table
44 shows that the duration of the fricative was the longest when there was a preceding consonant or a preceding pause, whereas it was shorter when there was a preceding high vowel or a preceding non-high vowel.
Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation Preceding consonant 114.374 38.147 Preceding high vowel 95.825 34.085 Preceding pause 111.245 39.695 Preceding non-high vowel 94.338 35.623 Table 44: Mean duration and standard deviation of fricatives according to preceding context
As for the effects of grapheme, the difference between was statistically significant (p=4.42e-10), whereas the difference between was not statistically significant. When relevelling the factor, the difference between
154
Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation 92.183 33.331
As for the interaction between task and grapheme, the difference between in the interview was statistically significant (p=0.002057).
However, the difference between in the interview was not statistically significant. When looking at the comparisons within each task, the difference between was statistically significant (p=0.0050864) in the reading task and the difference between and
(p=0.0091583). However, the difference between was statistically significant (p=0.0000000) and the difference between in the interview was not statistically significant. Table 46 shows the results for
155
Grapheme Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation 99.440 33.980 75.174 24.434
Finally, table 41 showed that the interaction between age group and grapheme was part of the best fit model. Table 47 shows that in all age groups informants have a shorter duration for than for
Grapheme Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation 79.203 27.741 (18-34) 99.734 32.917 (35-54) 106.599 34.774
156
4.1.2.3. The epenthetic fricative in Basque
As explained in section 4.1.2.2, there were differences in the CoG values of the oldest age group (age group C) and the other two groups. More precisely, in age group C the comparison between and
Based on the description of Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003:48), this epenthetic sound is a voiceless prepalatal fricative [ʃ] in the area of Markina and western Gipuzkoa, whereas it is a voiced prepalatal fricative [ʒ] in central Bizkaia, the variety under study. In this dissertation there were 68 instances of epenthetic fricatives in the interviews, although 4 of them were excluded from the dissertation due to noise during their production. All the tokens were preceded by the high front vowel /i/ (as in herrixen ‘in the town’), except for one token that had a preceding back vowel /o/ (halakoxe ‘like that’). Given the limited number of tokens with an epenthetic fricative, it was not possible to conduct a separate statistical analysis for these sounds. However, a description of these sounds is presented in this section in order to understand speakers’ sibilant inventory in more detail.
All the epenthetic fricatives were pronounced by 8 informants (F12, F18, F19,
M8, M9, M12, M15, M16) who were older than 43 years old at the moment of the 157 recording. Three of those informants were female speakers whereas the other five were male speakers. All the female speakers were more strongly dominant in Basque, while there were 2 male speakers who were more strongly dominant in Basque and three male speakers who were more strongly dominant in Spanish. It should be noted here that the data of informants M8, M9, M12 and M15 was analyzed separately in the previous section on affricates because they also displayed a production of the palatized /t/ that was not found among younger speakers.
The majority of tokens containing the epenthetic fricative came from two of the male speakers, and only 10 of them came from female speakers. Table 48 shows details regarding informants who used the epenthetic fricative, including their age, BLP score and the number of tokens with an epenthetic and non-epenthetic fricative corresponding to
Number of tokens Number of tokens with a non-epenthetic with an epenthetic fricative Informant Age BLP score fricative in the corresponding to
F12 46 52.03 5 0 F18 57 51.94 1 1 F19 66 10.344 2 0 M8 44 -11.992 1 0 M9 51 91.262 5 0 M12 55 -83.008 37 0 M15 59 62.296 12 0 M16 60 -13.448 1 3 Table 48: Details of informants who used an epenthetic fricative in the interview
158
As Table 48 shows, the non-epenthetic fricative corresponding to the grapheme
With regards to the epenthetic fricative, informant M12 was the speaker with the highest number of tokens (37 tokens), followed by informant M15 (with 12 tokens) and finally by M9 and F12 (with 5 tokens each). The mean CoG and standard deviation of the epenthetic fricative and non-epenthetic
159
Non-epenthetic fricative Epenthetic fricative (Hz) in the corresponding to
As explained earlier, informant M12 had the highest number of tokens containing the epenthetic fricative and for that reason his results are analyzed in more detail below.
Table 50 shows the mean CoG and standard deviation for the fricatives of informant
M12. First of all, the CoG of , and by , and the non-epenthetic
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation in the reading task and the interview 5040.963 1692.791
160
Figure 31 shows the density of the tokens produced by M12 for (in green) in both the interview and the reading task grouped together, as well as the density of
(in purple). It shows that, were produced with a CoG range of 5000-6000
Hz most of the times, whereas the CoG of the epenthetic
Figure 31: Density plot for
When analyzing the production of all the graphemes by M12 separately in the interview and the reading task, the results showed that , informant M12 pronounced it similarly in the interview and the reading task. Finally, the
Figure 32: Density plot for
162
With regards to duration, the epenthetic fricative of M12 had the shortest duration of all the fricatives (87.664 ms), whereas the non-epenthetic fricative corresponding to
(102.14527 ms) were similar and they fell between the other two fricatives, as can be seen in figure 33.
Figure 33: Boxplot of the duration of fricatives pronounced by informant M12
When analyzing the duration of fricatives among speakers M9, M12, M15, F12, the epenthetic fricative also had a shorter duration than the non-epenthetic fricative.
163
In summary, speakers who were older than 43 years old pronounced an epenthetic fricative in the interview whereas younger speakers did not have this sound. For three of the speakers the epenthetic sound was pronounced with a lower CoG than the rest of the fricatives, including the fricative corresponding to the grapheme
4.1.2.4. The effect of minimal pair status
In the fricative data there were 475 words that were minimal pairs containing
. In order to explore the differences between minimal pairs and non-minimal pairs in more detail, a subset of the data containing and
164
Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 4905.62 648.94 7.559 4.06e-08*** Age group (reference level is group B 35-54) Age group C +54 1509.91 983.80 1.535 0.1379 Age group A 18-34 474.38 891.87 0.532 0.5997 Grapheme (reference level is )
The difference between age groups B and C was not statistically significant.
Likewise, the difference between age groups B and A was not statistically significant.
When releveling this factor, the difference between age groups A and C was not statistically significant. With regards to grapheme, the difference between the CoG of the grapheme was statistically significant. Table 52 shows that the
CoG of the grapheme .
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation 5557.284 2447.201 Table 52: Mean CoG and standard deviation for
However, the effect of the status of the word as a minimal pair did not come up as statistically significant in the model. 165
As for duration, the best fit model included the factors of age group, the status of the word as a minimal pair or non-minimal pair, the BLP score, and the interaction between the status of the word and the BLP. Table 53 shows the best fit model for the analysis of duration.
Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 132.90548 6.65923 19.958 <2e-16*** Age group (reference level is group B 34-54) Age group C +54 10.96771 7.19235 1.525 0.140672 Age group A 18-34 -29.27736 6.67194 -4.388 0.000213*** Status of the word (reference level is minimal pair) Non-minimal pair -20.16490 5.35426 -3.766 0.000361*** BLP score -0.12045 0.06136 -1.963 0.059734 Status of the word* BLP score (reference level is minimal pair) Non-minimal pair*BLP 0.07968 0.02143 3.719 0.000204*** Table 53: Best fit model for the analysis of the duration of minimal pairs
The difference between age groups B and C was not statistically significant.
However, the difference between age groups B and A was statistically significant
(p=0.000213). When relevelling the factor, the difference between groups C and A was also statistically significant (p=1.07e-05). The mean duration results available in Table
54 show that the duration of fricatives was the longest among informants who were older than 54 years old and it was the shortest among informants who were between 18 and 34 166 years old. The fricative duration of informants who were between 35 and 54 fell between age groups A and C.
Mean duration Standard Deviation (ms) Age group A (18-34) 85.482 29.377 Age group B (35-54) 112.862 30.755 Age group C (+54) 127.047 30.418 Table 54: Mean duration and standard deviation for the fricatives according to age group
With regards to the status of the word, the difference in the duration of the fricative in words that constituted minimal pairs and words that did not was statistically significant (p=0.000361). As Table 55 shows, the mean fricative duration was longer in minimal pairs than in non-minimal pairs.
Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation Minimal pairs 117.211 32.465 Non-minimal pairs 98.942 33.975 Table 55: Mean duration and standard deviation of minimal pairs and non-minimal pairs
The effect of the BLP was not statistically significant by itself, but its interaction with the status of the word as a minimal pair or non-minimal pair was statistically
167 significant. More precisely, all informants had longer durations for minimal pairs than for non-minimal pairs, although these differences were bigger among informants who were more strongly dominant in Spanish.
4.2. Results for Spanish
This section summarizes the results for the affricate represented by the grapheme in the variety of northern peninsular
Spanish of bilingual speakers.
4.2.1. The Spanish affricate
The factors that were included when building the regression models are available in section 3.3.2 of the dissertation.
4.2.1.1. The CoG of the Spanish affricate
Words containing
56 shows, the best fit model only included the factor of gender.
Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 6085.18 548.54 11.09 5.36e-11 *** Gender (reference level is female) Male -2035.37 756.68 -2.69 0.0134 * Table 56: Best fit model for the analysis of the CoG of the Spanish affricate
Table 56 shows that the difference between male speakers and female speakers was statistically significant (p=0.0134). As can be seen in table 57, female speakers had higher CoG values for
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Female speakers 6556.549 2473.190 Male speakers 4462.518 1925.534 Table 57: Mean CoG and standard deviation for the Spanish affricate among female and male speakers
4.2.1.2. The duration of the Spanish affricate
The best fit model for the total duration of
Table 58 summarizes the results of the best fit model.
Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 102.156 3.313 30.838 <2e-16*** Age group (reference level is group B 34-54) Age group C +54 8.384 3.391 2.472 0.02259* Age group A 18-34 -11.814 3.387 -3.488 0.00235** Continued Table 58: Best fit model for the duration of the affricate in Spanish
169
Table 58 continued
Gender (reference level is female) Male -7.970 2.767 -2.880 0.00932** Task (reference level is interview) Reading task 11.763 3.040 3.870 0.00024***
Table 58 shows that the difference in the total duration of the Spanish affricate among age group B and age group C was statistically significant (p=0.02259). Likewise, the difference between age groups B and A was also statistically significant (p=0.00235).
When relevelling the factor of age group, the difference between the age group A and C was also statistically significant (p=8.22e-06). Table 59 shows that age group C had the longest duration for their Spanish affricate, whereas group A had the shortest duration.
The duration of
Mean total duration (ms) Standard Deviation Age group A (18-34) 95.449 19.185 Age group B (35-54) 106.976 21.368 Age group C (+54) 114.955 21.353 Table 59: Mean total duration and standard deviation for the Spanish affricate for the three age groups
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As for the effects of gender, the difference in the total duration of the Spanish affricate among males and females was statistically significant. As can be seen in table
60, male speakers had a shorter duration for their Spanish affricate than female speakers.
Mean total duration (ms) Standard Deviation Female speakers 109.582 22.986 Male speakers 101.862 20.562 Table 60: Mean total duration and standard deviation for the Spanish affricate for female and male speakers
Finally, the difference between the total duration of the Spanish affricate in the interview and the reading task was statistically significant (p=0.00024). As table 61 shows, the Spanish affricate was pronounced with a longer duration in the reading task than in the interview.
Mean total duration (ms) Standard Deviation Interview 100.130 26.539 Reading task 107.105 20.685 Table 61: Mean total duration and standard deviation for the Spanish affricate in the interview and reading task
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4.2.2. Results for the Spanish fricative
The factors included when building the regression model are available in section 3.3.2 of the dissertation.
4.2.2.1. The CoG of the Spanish fricative
The total token count for Spanish fricatives was 2,372. The best fit model for the CoG of the Spanish fricative included the factors of gender, task, position in the syllable and the word, and preceding context. Table 62 shows the results for the best fit model.
Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 5508.82 616.39 8.937 7.48e-12*** Gender (reference level is female) Male -1753.81 711.01 -2.467 0.021903* Task (reference level is interview) Reading task 721.45 196.89 3.664 0.000396*** Position (reference level is coda medial) Onset medial -80.54 277.04 139.40 0.771700 Word final -525.31 230.85 153.30 0.024256* Onset initial -275.19 256.20 145.30 0.284542 Preceding context (reference level is preceding consonant) High vowel -570.61 365.07 -1.563 0.118816 Pause 587.31 403.33 1.456 0.145636 Non-high vowel -505.68 310.08 -1.631 0.103472 Table 62: Best fit model for the CoG of the fricative in Spanish
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The difference in the CoG of the Spanish fricative between males and females was statistically significant (p=0.021903). Table 63 shows that female speakers had higher CoGs than male speakers, as in the analysis of the affricate in Spanish.
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Female speakers 5382.466 2296.646 Male speakers 3620.481 2418.068 Table 63: Mean CoG and standard deviation for the Spanish fricative among female and male speakers
The difference in the CoG of the interview and the reading task was also statistically significant (p=0.000396). Table 64 shows that the CoG was higher in the reading task than in the interview.
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Interview 3905.057 2602.522 Reading task 4756.081 2435.099 Table 64: Mean CoG and standard deviation for the Spanish fricative in the interview and reading task
With regards to the position of the fricative in the syllable and the word, the only statistically significant difference was that between word final and coda medial position
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(p=0.024256). The rest of the comparisons were not statistically significant. When relevelling the factor of position, the rest of comparisons were not statistically significant either.
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Onset initial 4616.565 2335.663 Onset medial 4754.544 2407.145 Coda medial 4745.951 2702.147 Word final 3994.737 2531.144 Table 65: Mean CoG and standard deviation for the Spanish fricative according to position
As for the effect of preceding context, the difference in the CoG of the Spanish fricative when there was a preceding consonant and when there was a preceding vowel or a preceding pause was not statistically significant. When relevelling the factor, the difference between preceding high vowel and preceding pause was statistically significant (p=0.001631), whereas the difference between preceding high vowel and preceding non-high vowel was not statistically significant. Finally, the difference between preceding pause and preceding non-high vowel was statistically significant
(p=0.000535). Table 66 shows that the CoG for the Spanish fricative was the highest when there was a preceding pause whereas it was the lowest when there was a preceding non-high vowel. The CoG of the Spanish fricative was very similar when there was a preceding consonant or a preceding high vowel.
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Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Preceding consonant 4725.875 2101.517 Preceding high vowel 4714.259 2525.611 Preceding pause 5604.955 2533.754 Preceding non-high vowel 4393.364 2527.261 Table 66: Mean CoG and standard deviation for the Spanish fricative according to preceding context
4.2.2.2. The duration of the Spanish fricative
The best fit model for the duration of the Spanish fricative included the factors of position of the fricative in the syllable and the word, age group, gender, and preceding context. Table 67 shows the results of the best fit model for the duration of the Spanish fricative .
Estimate Std. Error t value p value Intercept 69.189 8.519 8.122 1.98e-14*** Position (reference level is coda medial) Onset medial 29.180 6.330 4.610 6.40e-06*** Word final 34.641 5.218 6.639 1.65e-10*** Onset initial 31.698 5.838 5.430 1.28e-07*** Age group (reference level is group B 35-54) Group C +54 21.694 5.186 4.183 0.000459*** Group A 18-34 -8.254 5.182 -1.593 0.126974 Continued Table 67: Best fit model for the duration of the fricative in Spanish
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Table 67 Continued
Gender (reference level is female) Male -10.983 4.234 -2.594 0.017364* Preceding context (reference level is preceding consonant) High vowel -4.755 7.409 -0.642 0.521230 Pause 11.162 7.691 1.451 0.146832 Non-high vowel -6.493 6.146 -1.056 0.291031
As table 67 shows, the difference in the duration of the fricative when it is in coda medial position and in onset medial position is statistically significant (p=6.40e-06).
Likewise, the difference between coda medial and word final position is statistically significant (p=1.65e-10). The difference between coda medial and onset initial position was also statistically significant (p=1.28e-07). When relevelling the factor, the other position comparisons were not statistically significant.
Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation Onset initial 98.815 28.652 Onset medial 95.774 27.986 Coda medial 65.529 21.108 Word final 89.878 49.430 Table 68: Mean duration and standard deviation for the Spanish fricative according to its position in the syllable and the word.
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As for the effect of age, the difference in the duration of the Spanish fricative between age groups B and C was statistically significant (p=0.000459). However, the difference between age groups B and A was not statistically significant. When relevelling the factor of age group, the difference between age groups C and A was also statistically significant (p=1.19e-05). Table 69 shows that the duration of the fricative in Spanish was the longest for group C and the shortest for group A, as in the analysis of the total duration of the affricate in Spanish. The duration of the fricative in Spanish in age group
B was in between that of age groups A and C.
Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation Age group A (18-34) 74.996 26.584 Age group B (35-54) 83.840 38.720 Age group C (+54) 104.704 37.472 Table 69: Mean duration and standard deviation for the Spanish fricative among the three age groups
With regards to gender, the difference between female speakers and male speakers was statistically significant (p=0.017364). Table 70 shows that female speakers had longer durations for their Spanish fricative than male speakers.
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Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation Female speakers 92.974 38.893 Male speakers 82.534 33.818 Table 70: Mean duration and standard deviation for the Spanish fricative for female speakers and male speakers
Finally, the difference in the duration of the Spanish fricative when there was a preceding consonant and a preceding vowel or a preceding pause was not statistically significant. When relevelling the factor, the difference between preceding high vowel and preceding pause was statistically significant (p=0.02349). Likewise, the difference between preceding pause and preceding non-high vowel was statistically significant
(p=0.00249). However, the difference between preceding high and non-high vowel was not statistically significant. As can be seen table 71, the Spanish fricative was the longest when it was preceded by a pause and it was the shortest when it was preceded by a high vowel.
Mean duration (ms) Standard Deviation Preceding consonant 108.249 28.967 Preceding high vowel 82.431 30.923 Preceding pause 117.100 29.839 Preceding non-high vowel 87.314 38.220 Table 71: Mean duration and standard deviation for the Spanish fricative according to preceding sound
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4.3. Comparison between Basque and Spanish sibilants
This section compares the Basque sibilants to the Spanish sibilants by using descriptive statistics. In order to be as consistent as possible, this section only takes into account the data of 14 informants who completed the tasks both in Basque and in Spanish. As explained in chapter 3, those informants were recorded once in Basque in 2015 and once in Spanish in 2019. They also completed two BLP Questionnaires: once before completing the tasks in 2015 and once before completing the task in 2019. It should be noted here that based on their overall BLP scores, the majority of the informants were more strongly dominant in the same language in 2015 and 2019. However, three of the informants (F1, M5 and F9) had become more strongly dominant in the other language when they completed their BLP Questionnaire in 2019 and the reason for this could be that informants experienced some changes in their work environments and lifestyle during those four years. Table 72 summarizes these 14 informants’ gender, speaker ID, age during the first and second recording, level of education by 2019, and the BLP scores in the first and second recording.
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Age during the BLP score Speaker first recording Level of education by (min -218, Gender ID - second 2019 max +218) recording 1st rec. 2nd rec. Female F1 22 - 26 Masters Degree 20.66 -33.612 M1 22 - 27 Vocational Training 118.416 58.48 Male M5 21 - 25 Vocational Training 47.134 -1.73 F9 37 - 41 University Degree -3.542 17.71 F11 45 - 48 Vocational training -42.508 -24.43 Female F10 48 - 52 Part of university -48.05 -69.842 studies M3 31 - 35 Secondary school and -0.918 -18.258 bachiller Male M4 33 - 37 Vocational studies -26.708 -19.08 M7 43 - 47 Masters Degree -32.334 -54.126 Female F16 61 - 65 University Degree 28.516 4.36 M6 51 - 55 University Degree 62.108 7.522 M15 59 - 63 Vocational Training 62.296 7.444 Male M13 55 - 59 Vocational Training -9.82 -52.766 M12 55 - 58 Vocational Training -83.008 -62.484 Table 72: Gender, speaker ID, age during the first and second recordings, level of education and BLP scores during the 1st and 2nd recordings of the informants who completed the tasks in Basque and Spanish
The total token count for informants who completed the tasks in Basque and
Spanish was 5,419. The results for the mean CoG in figure 34 show that affricates had an overall higher mean CoG than fricatives in both Basque and Spanish. With regards to the place of articulation of Basque sibilants,
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Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation 4743.638 2232.587 3854.557 2402.519 Table 73: Mean CoG and standard deviation of Basque and Spanish sibilants for 14 informants
The results in table 68 can be visualized in figure 34.
Figure 34: Mean CoG for
The following section summarizes the results for Basque affricates
4.3.1. Comparison of affricates
When analyzing the results of affricates among females and males separately in table 74, the results showed that female speakers had higher mean CoG values than male speakers.
Moreover, female and male speakers had higher CoG values for their Basque affricates than for their Spanish affricate.
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation
The results are analyzed in more detail based on informants’ age group and BLP scores. In order to do that, figures 35, 36, and 37 are used to present the individual results for informants in each age group. Informants who are closest to the left of the graph are more strongly dominant in Spanish whereas informants who are more strongly dominant in Basque are placed closer to the right side of the graph.
Informants M4 (BLP score: -26.708), M3 (BLP score: -0.918), F1 (BLP score:
20.66), M5 (BLP score: 47.134), and M1 (BLP score: 118.416) were in age group A
182 when they completed the tasks in Basque. Based on their overall BLP scores, three of those informants were more strongly dominant in Basque and two of them were more strongly dominant in Spanish in 2015. As mentioned earlier, these informants (M4, M3,
F1, M5, and M1) also completed the tasks in Spanish and the BLP Questionnaire in 2019.
Their BLP scores showed that informants M1, M4, and M3 were more strongly dominant in the same language in 2015 and 2019, whereas informants F1 and M5 changed their dominant language in that period of time. When comparing informants’ CoG values for
Basque affricates to their CoG values for the Spanish affricate in figure 35, the results showed that informants M5 and M3 had very similar CoG values for their Basque affricates and Spanish affricate. However, informants M4, F1, and M1 had a lower CoG value for their Spanish affricate than for their Basque affricates.
Figure 35: Mean CoG for
Informants F10, F11, M7, F9, and M6 were part of age group B in 2015 and they also completed all tasks in Basque and Spanish. In 2015 informant M6 was more strongly dominant in Basque whereas informants F10, F11, M7, and F9 were more strongly dominant in Spanish. In 2019, all informants were still more strongly dominant in the same language except for informant F9, who had changed her more strongly dominant language.
Figure 36 shows the mean CoG for
M7, F9, and M6 (age group B). When comparing the CoG of the Basque affricates to that of the Spanish affricate, informants F10, F11, M7 and F9 had a lower CoG for their
Spanish affricate than for their affricates in Basque. Moreover, the difference in the CoG of the Basque affricates and the Spanish affricate was bigger for informant F9 than for the rest of the informants. However, informant M6 had a similar CoG for his Spanish
184
Figure 36: Mean CoG for
Finally, informants M12, M13, F16, and M15 were in age group C as they were
55 years old or older. Based on their BLP scores, informants M12 and M13 were more strongly dominant in Spanish and informants F16 and M15 were more strongly dominant in Basque during both recordings. Figure 37 shows the mean CoG results for M12, M13,
F16, and M15. When comparing their results for Basque and Spanish affricates, three informants had lower CoG values for
185
Figure 37: Mean CoG for
In summary, this section shows that all informants had lower CoG values for their
Spanish affricate
M15 and M6, whose CoG values for
M12, F16 had very similar CoG values for
4.3.2. Results for fricatives
The analysis of fricatives of the 14 informants in this section shows that female and male speakers had lower CoG values for their Spanish fricative than for their Basque fricatives
186
Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation 5730.555 1928.614 Females 4264.645 1868.134 4247.623 2211.532 Males 3628.001 2625.606 Table 75: Mean CoG and standard deviation of Basque and Spanish affricates among female and male speakers
The results for fricatives are further explored by taking into account the different age groups and BLP scores of the 14 informants in this section. Informants are arranged in order from lower to higher BLP scores in figures 38, 39, and 40. Figure 38 shows that all informants in age group A, except for informant M3, had lower CoG values for their
Spanish fricative than for their Basque fricatives, as it happened in the comparison of
Spanish and Basque affricates in age group A.
187
Figure 38: Mean CoG for in Spanish for informants who were in age group A in 2015
Informants F10, F11, M7, F9, and M6 were in age group B in 2015. Their results in figure 39 show that all informants except for informant M6 had lower CoG values for their Spanish fricative than for their Basque fricatives. These results are similar to the results obtained from the comparison between Basque and Spanish affricates in age group
B.
188
Figure 39: Mean CoG for in Spanish for informants who were in age group B in 2015
Finally, figure 40 shows the mean CoG values for fricatives among informants
M12, M13, F16, and M15, who were in age group C in 2015. The results show that informant M13 was the only one in age group C with a lower CoG for his Spanish fricative than for his Basque fricatives. Informants M15 and M12 had a similar CoG for their Spanish fricative and their Basque fricatives
When looking at the Basque fricatives in figure 40 in more detail, informants M12 and M15 kept a contrast between
189 the CoG values for those both tasks grouped together. The detailed analysis of this informant’s fricatives is available in section 4.1.2.3.
Figure 40: Mean CoG for in Spanish for informants M12, M13, F16, M15
In summary, the results for this section show that the majority of informants had a lower CoG for their Spanish fricative than for their Basque fricatives. Informants M3,
M6, and M15 were again exceptions to this pattern because they had higher CoG values for their Spanish fricative, as they did for their Spanish affricate. The analysis of fricatives also shows that informants M12 and F16 had similar CoG values for their
Spanish fricative and their Basque fricatives, although in this case their CoG value for the
190
Spanish fricative was not lower than that of their Basque fricatives, while their Spanish affricate had a lower CoG than their Basque affricates.
To conclude the comparison between Basque and Spanish sibilants, the results suggest that the majority of informants had higher CoG values for their Basque affricates than for their Spanish affricate. The same pattern was repeated for fricatives. However, informants who were older than 50 years old and were most strongly dominant in Basque were the ones who used similar CoG values for their Spanish sibilants and their Basque sibilants. It should be noted here that in the case of age group C, there were several informants who had similar CoG values in both languages regardless of their overall BLP score. Finally, the reasons why informants M3 and M5 also had similar CoG values for their Basque and Spanish affricates are further explored in chapter 5 of the dissertation. It should be noted here that informant M5 had a lower CoG for his Spanish fricative than for his Basque fricatives whereas this was not the case for informant M3.
191
CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION
5.1. Results for Basque affricates
The results in chapter 4 showed that the CoG values of Basque affricates were conditioned by the factors of gender, task, grapheme, age group, and the following interactions: grapheme*age group and grapheme*BLP score. Female speakers had a significantly higher CoG for their Basque affricates than male speakers and that difference was expected given that previous studies found an effect of speakers’ physical properties on their CoG values (Jongman et al. 2000, Gandarias et al. 2014). Moreover, the results showed that the CoG values were different in the interview and the reading task. More precisely, informants had higher CoG values in the reading task than in the interview and this could mean that they had a more fronted place of articulation for their affricates when they read sentences out loud than when they answered open-ended questions. One may think that these differences could be due to informants keeping a more robust contrast between affricates in the reading task than in the interview, given that previous studies have shown that speakers’ awareness of their own speech increases as they move from more informal to more formal or standard-like speech styles as (Labov
1981:3, Wolfram & Schilling 2016:391). However, the contrast between affricates did not depend on the type of task as the interaction between grapheme and task was not
192 statistically significant. Instead of that, the results suggest that the type of task had a similar effect on the three affricates.
With regards to the effects of grapheme,
Hz). This suggests that speakers in this dissertation pronounced
CoG results for affricates in this dissertation and allows us to compare them to the results of previous studies. First of all, when comparing the mean CoG results for
Iglesias et al. (2016)
When comparing the results in this dissertation to the results in Hualde (2010) and
Iglesias et al. (2016), the differences between
193 placing the active articulator in the front of the oral cavity. When informants produced a contrast between affricates, that contrast was smaller than for informants in non-merging varieties of Basque and it was produced in a more fronted area of the oral cavity. These results support the ones obtained by Gandarias et al. (2014:12), who analyzed the production of
(2014:12). However, the palatogram of the speaker in Gandarias et al. (2014) shows that the articulation is very fronted suggesting that
The CoG results in this dissertation are also compared to previous studies on sibilant merging varieties and they are similar to those in Gaminde et al. (2013) and those for the male speaker in Gandarias et al. (2014). More precisely,
194 very differently. Based on the data in Eustat (2020a, 2020b), some of the regions that they included, such as Zeberio, have a high percentage of inhabitants who are able to understand and speak Basque well (73.23% of the population), whereas other regions, such as Getxo, have a much lower percentage (33.28%). Gandarias et al. (2014) focused on the production data of informants from a single region (i.e. Lekeitio), and the percentage of inhabitants who understand and speak Basque well in that region is 81.71%
(Eustat 2020c). However, this dissertation focuses on Amorebieta-Etxano, where the percentage of inhabitants who understand and speak Basque well is 56.16% (Eustat
2018b), as explained in section 2.1 of the dissertation.
This Hualde Iglesias et al. Gaminde et Gandarias et al. dissertation (2010) (2016) al. (2014) (2013) Female Male
The effect of the BLP score on the CoG of Basque affricates was not statistically significant by itself. However, the tendency was that the CoG increased as the BLP increased. The interaction between the BLP score and grapheme was statistically significant and as figure 41 shows, the CoG values of
Basque increased).
Figure 41: Scatterplots and regression lines of the COG for
The results were also analyzed categorically by grouping informants who were more strongly dominant in Basque together and informants who were more strongly dominant in Spanish together. The results of the categorical analysis confirmed the results of the analysis where the BLP score was measured in a continuous manner. As table 77 shows, Spanish dominant informants pronounced
196
Grapheme Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Basque
The density plots further showed that the production of
42 below.
Figure 42: Density plot of the affricates among Spanish dominant speakers 197
However, there were some small contrasts among Basque dominant informants.
The density plot for Basque dominant speakers in figure 18 showed a bimodal tendency for
43.
Figure 43: Density plots of
198
The two bumps on the right of the males’ density plot in figure 43 seem to suggest that there were some tokens where the contrast in the three places of articulation was being kept. More precisely, there were tokens of
As he explained, he was able to learn this contrast while he took Basque courses for adults together with speakers from Nafarroa and Gipuzkoa who did not have the merger.
A closer look at the data of informant M6 showed that he pronounced a robust contrast between
2016:391). Moreover, as informant M6 learned the affricate contrast in a more formal
199 setting, one would expect him to maintain a more robust constrast in tasks that elicit a more formal speech style, such as the reading task. However, that was not the case for his pronunciation of
When comparing the results of male informants who were dominant in Basque including and excluding the data of informant M6 in figure 44, it became clear that the tokens of
200
Figure 44: Density plots of
In summary, the results showed an effect of factors that had not been previously analyzed in the production of Basque affricates. More precisely, they confirmed that informants who were more strongly dominant in Basque were able to maintain a more robust contrast in their production of affricates than informants who were more strongly dominant in Spanish. A closer look at the data showed that Basque dominant informants had a two-way contrast of affricates: they pronounced
201
It should be noted here that previous studies have relied on informants’ mother tongue (Gaminde et al. 2013), and informants’ and their parents’ place of origin and self- reported L1 and L2 (Jurado Noriega 2011) to determine their linguistic dominance. There is one study on Basque sibilants that analyzed the data of five informants from a corpus where informants’ L1 and L2 was determined by combining a language background questionnaire and a proficiency test (Beristain 2018a). However, this dissertation focuses on the production of a higher number of informants and measures informants’ degree of language dominance in a gradient manner through the BLP Questionnaire (as in Muxika-
Loitzate 2017).
As for the factor of age group, it did not have an effect on the CoG by itself, but the interaction between grapheme and age group had an effect on the CoG. The overall mean results showed that speakers from age group A (18-34 years old) did not keep a contrast in their places of articulation of affricates, whereas the contrast was kept in a more robust manner among older speakers. More precisely, the contrast was more robust among informants in age group B, although the differences between
202 the density plot. Finally, informants in age group C pronounced
Figure 45: Density plots of
Figure 45 shows that the age groups A and C displayed a bimodal tendency. That tendency was due to gender differences, as female speakers in those age groups had a 203 higher CoG than male speakers. Figure 46 shows the results for female speakers (F) and male speakers (M) in each age group and it allows us to visualize gender differences. An interesting detail in figure 46 is that female speakers in age group C had the CoG pattern that was described by previous literature (Hualde 2010), as
Figure 46: Density plots of
The results in this dissertation showed that informants who were older than 54 years old were able to maintain a contrast between
(1984) claimed that speakers born between 1882-1923 in Amorebieta-Etxano merged the graphemes
(1984) did not mention any merger. However, the results in this dissertation show that
Besides differing in the merger of affricates, older speakers also differed from younger speakers in the contexts where they used Basque affricates. More specifically, older speakers had instances where they palatalized /t/ when it was preceded by the high front vowel /i/ and four speakers sometimes pronounced it as an affricate. The results showed that those informants had shorter durations for the palatalized /t/ than for
205 like txar ‘bad’. However, the place of articulation of informant M9 for the palatalized /t/ was closer to that of
M12. It could be that informant M9 considered
Basque than in Spanish. Further analysis with a higher number of tokens would allow us to determine which factors influence the place of articulation of the palatalized /t/ as well as its current use among older speakers.
When looking at the broader picture of the affricate merger, it is important to remember the location of Amorebieta-Etxano and how it relates to possible dialectal differences with respect to the sibilant merger within Bizkaian Basque. As explained in chapter 2, it is located between the city of Bilbao, where the merger is described as being widespread (Hualde 2010), and Gernika, with a more limited type of merger. The production of affricates in Amorebieta-Etxano seems to be similar to that described for
Gernika, where previous studies claimed that younger generations were undergoing a
“massive” merger of sibilants compared to that of older speakers (Hualde 2010:100,
Gaminde 2010:15). More specifically, Gaminde (2010) claimed that older speakers maintained contrasts in their production of affricates that speakers born after 1979 did not
206 maintain. The results in this dissertation provided a more detailed age range to determine who merges their affricates and who keeps the contrast in their places of articulation.
More precisely, this dissertation determines that speakers born before 1960 maintain a contrast between
Amorebieta-Etxano, contrary to previous descriptions for areas like Gernika that highlight that older speakers maintain the contrast between
The results also showed that there was individual variation in the production of affricates. More precisely, there were speakers whose affricates were completely merged whereas others, such as informant M6, kept their contrast in a more robust manner. In the case of informant M6, it is unclear whether he kept a robust contrast in his production of affricates due to his linguistic attitudes or his background taking courses with speakers of non-merging varieties of Basque. For that reason, future studies should explore speakers’ linguistic attitudes towards the three-way contrast in sibilant-merging varieties of Basque and see if this correlates with their pronunciation.
This dissertation also explored the duration of affricates. The results for the total duration of affricates (stop phase and fricative phase) resembled the results in Urrutia et al. (1988:80-82), as
These results were also similar to those in Gandarias et al. (2014:16-17), as they found that
207 total duration than
The factors that had an effect on the total duration of Basque affricates were age group, task, preceding context, grapheme, BLP score, and the interaction between preceding context and grapheme as well as that between grapheme and BLP score. With regards to age group, speakers who were 55 years old or older had a longer duration for their Basque affricates than speakers from age groups B and A. Moreover, speakers who were between 35 and 54 years old also had longer durations for their affricates than speakers who were younger than 35 years old. It should be noted here that speech rate was not measured in this dissertation and for that reason, the differences in duration found among age groups could occur because older informants may be speaking at a slower rate than younger informants. As for the effect of task, Basque affricates had a longer duration in the reading task than in the interview. These differences could be due to differences in the reading pace, as older speakers reported to have more difficulties reading in Basque than younger speakers.
As for preceding context, affricates had a longer duration when they were preceded by a non-high vowel (/a, e, o/) than when they were preceded by a high vowel or a consonant and these differences in duration were bigger for
With regards to the effects of grapheme,
208 duration for some of their tokens containing
With regards to the different phases of affricates, previous studies found that the duration of the fricative phase was able to differentiate
(Gaminde et al. 2013, Gandarias et al. 2014). Those studies found that
However, the results in this dissertation differ from those in Gaminde et al. (2013) and
Gandarias et al. (2014) as
82) for affricates in intervocalic positions. Consequently, informants in this dissertation are not using the duration of the fricative phase to differentiate
5.2. Results for Basque fricatives
The results showed that the following factors and interactions influenced the production of Basque fricatives: gender, grapheme, BLP score*grapheme, task, task*grapheme, grapheme*age group, grapheme*BLP score*age group, and preceding context.
209
Firstly, as explained in the analysis of affricates, informants’ gender had an effect on the CoG. More precisely, female speakers had a higher CoG than male speakers and this was expected due to the effects of speakers’ physical properties on their CoG values
(Jongman et al. 2000, Gandarias et al. 2014).
As for the effect of grapheme, the mean CoG results showed that informants pronounced
Hualde (2010:94) and Iglesias et al. (2016:13), who described non-merging varieties of
Basque. However, the contrasts among fricatives in this dissertation were less robust than in Hualde (2010) and Iglesias et al. (2016). More precisely, the biggest mean CoG contrast was that between
These results suggested that informants in this dissertation pronounced their Basque fricatives as coronal by moving the active articulator towards the front area of the oral cavity, as they did for Basque affricates. For that reason, when informants kept the contrast in the places of articulation of fricatives, they did it in the front area of the oral cavity and that contrast was much smaller than in non-merging varieties of Basque.
The CoG pattern of
Noriega (2011) for speakers whose L1 is Basque and speakers whose L1 is Spanish, although the contrasts were again less robust in this dissertation. Finally, the results for
(2014:18-19). Even though Gandarias et al. (2014) also analyzed a sibilant merging
210 variety of Basque, the results of the male speaker show that he kept a more robust contrast than speakers in this dissertation based on their mean CoG. The results of this dissertation are different from those of the female speaker in Gandarias et al. (2014) as her CoG for .
This Hualde Iglesias Jurado Noriega Gandarias et al. dissertation (2010) et al. (2011) (2014) (2016) L1=Ba. L1=Sp. Female Male
5336.772 4173.368 8080.95 5362.415 4098.205 6500.34 5605.75
Table 78: Comparison of the mean CoG in this dissertation, Hualde (2010), Iglesias et al. (2016), Jurado Noriega (2011), and Gandarias et al. (2014)
With regards to the factor of BLP score, it did not have an effect on the production of fricatives by itself. However, the interaction between BLP score and grapheme had an effect on the pronunciation of fricatives. As figure 47 shows, the contrast between
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Figure 47: Scatterplots and regression lines of the COG for
As for Basque affricates, the results for fricatives were also analyzed categorically by grouping informants who were more strongly dominant in Basque together and informants who were more strongly dominant in Spanish together. The results of the categorical analysis confirmed the results of the analysis where the BLP score was measured in a continuous manner. As table 79 shows, Spanish dominant informants pronounced
Grapheme Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation Basque 5921.811 2715.642 speakers 4689.075 1988.352 speakers
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As explained in the results for affricates, this dissertation differs from previous studies on the sibilant merger as it measures informants’ degree of language dominance in a gradient manner through the BLP Questionnaire (as in Muxika-Loitzate 2017).
As for the factor of task, informants had higher CoG values in the reading task than in the interview, as it happened for Basque affricates. The interaction between task and grapheme showed that informants kept a more robust contrast between
Grapheme Mean CoG (Hz) Standard Deviation 5557.284 2447.201 4819.918 2466.034
With regards to age group, this factor did not have an effect on the production of fricatives by itself. However, the interaction between age group and grapheme had an effect on their production. As the mean CoG values in figure 48 show, the contrast between affricates was more robust among informants in age group C than among 213 informants in age groups A and B, as it happened for Basque affricates. The mean CoG values in group A indicated that , and finally by and were pronounced similarly whereas the place of articulation of
Figure 48: Mean CoG values for
It should be noted here that group C was the group with the highest number of the epenthetic fricatives (53 out of 64 epenthetic fricatives), which shows that their repertoire
214 of fricatives differed from the other groups. The rest of the epenthetic fricatives appeared among speakers in age group B who were older than 43 years old. However, there were no cases of the epenthetic fricative among informants in the age group A. These results showed that besides differing on the fricative merger, younger speakers differed from older speakers in their types of fricatives. As a consequence, words containing
A closer analysis of the data suggested that the epenthetic fricative had a prepalatal place of articulation, as described by Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003:48). We can further explore this by comparing the epenthetic fricative to the fricative phase of
M9, M10, and M12. These four informants were the only ones who had both the palatalized /t/ and the epenthetic fricative in their sibilant repertoires. In figure 48, the horizontal lines in the boxplots represent the median whereas the blue dots and numbers represent the mean CoG for each grapheme. The results show that the epenthetic fricative had a lower CoG, which means that it was pronounced farther back than the affricates, as expected given the overall differences found between fricatives and affricates.
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Figure 49: Boxplot with the CoG values for
Figure 50 allows to analyze the results of females (F) and males (M) in each age group separately. Those results confirmed that there was a high degree of overlap between the three fricatives in all age groups, although informants in age group C had more tokens of
were completely merged among female speakers in age group C, whereas the CoG of was kept in a robust manner for some tokens. This is represented by the bump on the left graph of the second line.
However, when analyzing these results more closely, it became clear that the reason for finding that bump was that informant M6 in that group kept a robust contrast in the places
216 of articulation of his three fricatives, as he did for affricates. When the data of that group was analyzed again extracting the data of informant M6, it showed that
Figure 50: Density plots for the CoG of
An interesting detail in the production of fricatives by informant M6 was that he maintained a more robust contrast between in the reading task than in the 217 interview. Figure 51 shows that he pronounced most of the tokens containing . As explained before, these results were expected because informants tend to have a higher degree of awareness of their speech in reading tasks than in interviews.
Figure 51: Strip charts for the CoG of
As for the interaction between grapheme, BLP, and age group, the overall results for age group A showed that the contrast between
In summary, the results showed that speakers who were 55 years old or older kept a more robust contrast between their Basque fricatives than younger speakers. These results resembled the results obtained for Basque affricates in this dissertation and they highlighted the need to explore sibilants among different age groups. Moreover, these results supported Hualde’s (2010) hypothesis that the speech of younger generations may be undergoing a “massive” merger of sibilants compared to that of older speakers
(2010:100), as some of the younger speakers have a complete merger of fricatives.
Moreover, the fact that Etxebarria (1984) claimed that there was a two-way distinction of fricatives (
Etxano seems to suggest that the complete merger is a recent phenomenon. However, informants’ degree of language dominance plays an important role in the contrast of fricatives among younger speakers. As explained before, younger informants who are more strongly dominant in Basque tend to make a more robust contrast between
The factor of preceding context also had an effect on the production of fricatives.
More precisely, fricatives that had a preceding non-high vowel were produced at a more fronted area of the oral cavity than fricatives that were preceded by a high vowel.
According to Zuazo (2009, 2019), this could be due to the palatalization of fricatives that occurs in the Western variety of Basque. However, the difference between the CoG values of fricatives preceded by non-high and high vowels was so small that it suggests
219 that speakers pronounced that contrast in the front area of the oral cavity, instead of producing fricatives preceded by high vowels and glides with a prepalatal place of articulation.
The duration of fricatives was also analyzed in this dissertation and the following factors and interactions had an effect on this acoustic measure: grapheme, age group, age group*grapheme, task, task*grapheme, and preceding context. First of all, the durations of (92.183 ms). These results resembled those in Gandarias et al.
(2014:12-13), as they also found that , although that difference was not statistically significant. Moreover, the duration differences found between age groups could be due to speech rate differences. The results showed that informants in the age group A (18-34 years old) had a shorter mean duration for their Basque fricatives than older informants in age groups B and C, as it happened with affricates. As for the interaction between age group and grapheme, informants had shorter durations for than for
220 they suggested that informants were not using duration as an acoustic cue to differentiate fricatives in any of the tasks. The results also suggested that informants could be lengthening fricatives in utterance initial position, as the fricative duration was longer when there was a preceding pause or consonant than when there was a preceding vowel.
This dissertation analyzed a subset of the data containing in the reading task to explore if speakers maintained any differences in their production of minimal pairs or if they merged them completely. Based on previous studies (Hualde
2010), were expected to merge in this variety of Basque. However, the study of minimal pairs was still of interest because it allowed us to know whether speakers maintain any differences in their pronunciation of when that is the only difference between two words. The overall CoG results showed a small difference in the production of . More precisely, , although both sounds were produced in the front of the oral cavity. The reason for finding this difference in their pronunciation could be that all these tokens were part of the reading task, where informants were more aware of their speech and could have created a small contrast between the two places of articulation. However, the factor of minimal pair was not part of the best fit model, which means that no difference was found in the production of in minimal pairs and non-minimal pairs.
The results for duration showed that the age group, and the status of the word as a minimal pair as well as its interaction with the BLP score had an effect on this acoustic measurement. Age group A had a shorter duration for than age groups B and
C. However, the interaction between age group and status of the word as a minimal pair
221 was not statistically significant, which suggested that the differences between the age groups were due to differences in their speech rate. As for the status of the word, minimal pairs had longer durations (117.211 ms) than non-minimal pairs (98.942 ms). However, speakers did not make bigger durational differences between in minimal pairs than in non-minimal pairs. Finally, the differences between minimal pairs and non- minimal pairs were bigger among informants who were dominant in Spanish than among informants who were dominant in Basque. However, Spanish dominant informants did not make bigger durational differences between in minimal pairs than
Basque dominant informants and this indicated that they did not keep a bigger durational contrast than Basque dominant speakers.
In summary, the results of showed that both sounds were pronounced in the front of the oral cavity, although informants kept a very small contrast in their places of articulation in the reading task. However, this contrast was not bigger in minimal pairs than in non-minimal pairs, as we would expect. The results also showed that informants did not use duration as an acoustic cue to keep a contrast in their production of . Consequently, informants seem to be relying mainly on context to differentiate minimal pairs containing in Basque. However, further studies on fricative duration should control for informants’ speech rate in order to ensure that some of the differences found are not due to differences in informants’ reading pace.
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5.3. Generational differences: conditioned palatalization and the epenthetic fricative
The results in this dissertation showed that there were differences in the production of fricatives and affricates among speakers of different age groups. More precisely, speakers who were 55 years old or older kept a contrast in their production of
Moreover, older speakers kept a more robust contrast between
“massive” among speakers who were born around the 1980s in that location (2010:100).
The results for Amorebieta-Etxano in this dissertation show that the sibilant merger is more widespread among bilingual speakers who were born after 1960 than speakers who were born before then. Moreover, this dissertation identifies the factors that favor a two- way contrast of fricatives and affricates among some speakers as opposed to the total merger.
An interesting finding in this dissertation is that there are also generational differences in the contexts where fricatives and affricates are used. More precisely, the analysis of affricates showed that there were 19 instances where /t/ was palatalized after the high front vowel /i/. From those 19 cases, there were 6 tokens that were pronounced as an affricate, whereas the rest were pronounced as stops. This limited number of tokens showed that the palatalized /t/ is not as common nowadays as Etxebarria (1984) described. The tokens of /t/ that were pronounced as affricates were analyzed separately 223 in this dissertation. Those tokens were produced by informants M8, M9, M10, and M12, who were 44 years old or older. However, female speakers and speakers who were 43 years old or younger did not palatalize /t/. This contrasts with Gaminde’s description for
Gernika (2010), as he claimed that speakers born between 1979 and 1990 palatalized /t/ in some instances. Given the limited amount of tokens with the palatalized /t/ in this dissertation, it was not possible to conduct a statistical analysis. However, the CoG and duration of the palatalized /t/ of informants M8, M9, M10, and M12 was compared to that of
In addition, informants M8, M9, M12, M15, M16, F12, F18, and F19 displayed a different type of fricative than the rest of the speakers. More precisely, those informants who were 44 years old or older pronounced an epenthetic fricative that younger speakers did not use. This fricative was inserted after the high front vowel /i/, except for one token where it was inserted after the back vowel /o/. Given that there was a limited amount of tokens of the epenthetic fricative, only the data of informant M12 was analyzed in detail as he pronounced the highest number of tokens. The results showed that the epenthetic fricative had the shortest duration and was pronounced in a less fronted area of the oral cavity than the other fricatives, including the
224 unexpected as previous studies suggested that the place of articulation of the epenthetic fricative and
In summary, the results for the conditioned palatalization of /t/ and of the epenthetic fricative showed that older speakers had a sibilant repertoire that was different from that of younger speakers. This highlights the need to analyze Basque sibilants using different types of tasks, contrary to previous studies that have focused on a single task and that sometimes rely on the production of nonce words (Gaminde et al. 2013:8). On the one hand, the reading task in this dissertation elicited the production of the three affricates
Moreover, the interview data showed that the affricate
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5.4. The current status of the sibilant merger
The results in this dissertation suggest that the sibilant merger is at an advanced stage in Amorebieta-Etxano. More precisely, the results show that the merger goes beyond the two-way contrast between the affricates
The merger of affricates and of fricatives is influenced by the factor of age group as older speakers tend to keep a more robust contrast in their production of sibilants than younger speakers. As it was hypothesized for Gernika (Hualde 2010, Gernika 2010), it seems that the total merger of Basque fricatives on the one hand and of affricates on the other is widespread among younger speakers in Amorebieta-Etxano. This shows that the total merger is not only present in the city of Bilbao and it suggests that other locations in
Bizkaia may be undergoing a process of total merger too. The fact that younger speakers use
The status of the merger was also influenced by the degree of linguistic dominance in Basque and Spanish, which was determined by the BLP Questionnaire. As explained in chapter 4 in this dissertation, the contrast between
BLP score increased. This asymmetry on the merger of affricates and fricatives contrasts with previous studies, which have claimed that there are two possible situations: (a) a two-way distinction of affricates (
Gaminde 2010).
Overall, the results in this dissertation contributed to the study of phonological mergers among bilingual speakers. Like Amengual & Chamorro (2015), this dissertation showed that bilingual speakers maintained a more robust contrast in a language if they were more strongly dominant in it, whereas they tended to merge those sounds if they were more strongly dominant in a different language. The BLP Questionnaire contributed to the replicability of the analyses in this dissertation as further studies could measure the linguistic dominance of Basque-Spanish bilinguals and its effect on the merger in a standardized manner following this methodology. Moreover, it offers an alternative method to measure linguistic dominance, as previous studies have relied on informants’ and their parents’ place of origin and L1 and L2 to determine which one is their dominant language (Gaminde et al. 2013, Jurado Noriega 2011). The only study that analyzed informants’ L1 and L2 having into account different dimensions of their language dominance was Beristain (2018a), as he analyzed the data of 5 informants from a corpus that combined a linguistic background questionnaire and a proficiency test. As far as I
227 know, the only previous study that used the BLP Questionnaire in the analysis of the sibilant merger among Basque-Spanish bilinguals was Muxika-Loitzate (2017), who used it in a categorical manner to analyze the articulation of fricatives in the reading task of the
10 youngest speakers in this dissertation. However, this dissertation uses the BLP scores in a gradient manner to better capture the different degrees of dominance in Basque and
Spanish. Moreover, it uses the BLP scores to capture that gradiency across different age groups and it focuses on the pronunciation of affricates and fricatives in different types of tasks.
Finally, the analyses in this dissertation show that there are at least some speakers who are aware of the differences in the places of articulation of Basque sibilants. For instance, informant M6 maintained a robust contrast in the places of articulation of the three fricatives and affricates, and he commented on his awareness of these differences.
He said that he had taken Basque courses with speakers of non-merging varieties, which explains why he displays the robust contrast that characterizes those varieties. Moreover, he said that he makes an effort to keep a contrast in his pronunciation of Basque sibilants for professional purposes. However, the question of whether the other informants are aware of the differences in the three places of articulation of Basque sibilants remains unanswered. For that reason future studies on sibilant merging varieties of Basque should consider including a perception study to see whether informants are aware of those differences. Moreover, perception studies could shed some light on the CoG threshold necessary for speakers to determine if two sibilants are merged or not.
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5.5. The sibilants of Spanish
The results for the Spanish affricate
CoG values (Jongman et al. 2000, Gandarias et al. 2014). However, the type of task, the preceding context, the stress and informants’ degree of language dominance and their age did not have an effect on the place of articulation of the Spanish
The results for the Spanish fricative showed that its pronunciation was influenced by informants’ gender, the type of task, the position of in the syllable and the word, and the context preceding it. However, informants’ degree of language dominance and their age did not have an effect on the place of articulation of the Spanish . The 229 results showed that female speakers had a higher CoG than male speakers in their production of , as in the analysis of the Spanish affricate. Moreover, the type of task influenced the place of articulation of the Spanish fricative, as it seemed to be more fronted in the reading task than in the interview. As for the position of in the syllable and the word, the results showed that was pronounced in a less fronted area of the oral cavity when it was in word final position than in onset initial, onset medial, and coda medial positions. With regards to preceding context, the Spanish fricative was pronounced in a more fronted manner when it was in utterance initial position than when it was preceded by a vowel. In summary, the Spanish was pronounced with a more fronted place of articulation in the reading task and in the context of word initial position
(specially when preceded by a pause), whereas it was pronounced with a farther back articulation in the interview and in word final position. The former are contexts where one would expect fortition of consonants and this could explain the higher CoG values found in those contexts. Further studies should explore the effects of those factors in the
CoG of the Spanish fricative in more detail.
The results for duration showed that the position of in the syllable and the word, the context preceding it, and informants’ age group and gender had an effect of its production. First of all, had a shortest duration when it was in coda medial position and it had a longer duration when it was in onset initial position. Preceding context also had an effect on the duration of the Spanish , as it had a longer duration when it was preceded by a pause than in other contexts. This suggests that informants could be lengthening the fricative in utterance initial position. It should be noted here that this
230 utterance initial lengthening of was also found in the analysis of Basque fricatives.
As for the effects of age, age group C had the longest duration for whereas age group
A had the shortest duration, and these results resemble the ones obtained for the Spanish affricate than male speakers, although this difference was small. These results for gender were again similar to those of the Spanish affricate
Altogether, there was less variation in Spanish sibilants due to the conditioning factors that were considered than in Basque sibilants.
5.6. Comparison between Basque and Spanish sibilants
When comparing the overall results of the statistical analyses of Basque sibilants and
Spanish sibilants, it was clear that gender had an effect on the CoG of sibilants in both languages. More specifically, female speakers had higher CoG values than male speakers.
As explained earlier, this was not related to the merger itself, but it had to do with the effects that informants’ physical properties had on their CoG (Jongman et al. 2000,
Gandarias et al. 2014). Moreover, the comparison between the analyses in both languages showed that informants’ degree of language dominance and their age only had an effect on their places of articulation of Basque sibilants, whereas this was not the case for
Spanish sibilants. This suggested that informants did not have more fronted places of articulation for their Spanish sibilants as their BLP increased or as they were more strongly dominant in Basque. In other words, informants’ sibilants in Spanish were not 231 influenced by their degree of language dominance, whereas their sibilants in Basque were influenced by it. As for duration, the factor of age group had an effect in the sibilants of both languages. More precisely, older speakers had longer durations for their sibilants than younger speakers in both Basque and Spanish. However, these differences could be due to differences in speech rate, as explained in sections 5.1, 5.2, and 5.5.
Chapter 4 shows the mean CoG values of the 14 informants who completed the tasks in Basque and Spanish in order to explore how the pronunciation of the Spanish
compares to that of Basque sibilants. The results indicated that most informants had more fronted places of articulation for their Basque affricates than for their Spanish affricate. Likewise, most informants had a more fronted place of articulation for their Basque fricatives than for their Spanish fricative. These results resemble the ones obtained by Jurado Noriega (2011:135), who found that some informants had a lower CoG for their Spanish than for their Basque
M12, F16, M15) who did not always follow this pattern and who did not have distinct categories for their sibilants in the two languages. Those six informants can be further divided into two groups. First of all, informants M6, M12, and M15 maintained a more robust contrast in their production of Basque sibilants than the rest of the informants and their place of articulation for their Spanish sibilants was close to one of their Basque sibilants. Informant M12 had a similar place of articulation for his Spanish
Basque
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had the same place of articulation as their Basque
M6, his place of articulation for the Spanish
was similar to his Basque
Moreover, they had phonetic repertoires in Basque that were unlike the repertoires of other speakers, as informant M6 kept a three-way contrast of sibilants and informants
M12 and M15 pronounced instances of the epenthetic fricative and palatalized /t/ that most informants did not have. Moreover, informants M15 and M6 were more strongly dominant in Basque than the rest of the informants in their age groups.
The other three informants who did not have distinct places of articulation for their Basque and Spanish sibilants were informants M3, M5, and F16. These informants had a similar place of articulation for their fricatives and affricates in both languages. The case of informant M5 was particularly interesting as he did not have a distinct place of articulation for his Basque and Spanish affricates, but he did have a farther back place of articulation for his Spanish fricative than for his Basque fricatives, as the majority of the informants. The answers that these three informants gave in the BLP Questionnaire were analyzed in detail to understand why they had a pattern that differed from the rest of informants. Based on their BLP answers, one hypothesis could be that informants M3 and
M5 did not have distinct places of articulation for their Basque and Spanish affricates because they reported that they did not use Basque frequently in their everyday lives and they may have been using their affricate in Spanish (the language that they used most
233 frequently) to pronounce their affricates in Basque. The fact that informant M3 reported that he did not feel comfortable speaking Basque until he was 17 years old could indicate that he also used Spanish more often than Basque when he was growing up, which could support this hypothesis. However, most of the informants reported that they also used
Basque less frequently than Spanish and consequently, the factor of language use by itself does not seem to explain why informants M3 and M5 had that pronunciation of sibilants.
Moreover, informant F16 reported to use Basque more frequently than Spanish but she did not have distinct places of articulation for her Basque and Spanish affricates and fricatives either. This means that the reasons why informants M3, M5, and F16 behaved differently from the others in their production of sibilants is still unclear and further studies would benefit from including a sociolinguistic interview that may be able to shed some light into this.
In summary, the majority of the informants in this dissertation were not just replacing their Basque sibilants for the Spanish ones or the other way around. The role of linguistic contact in the sibilant merger is further discussed in section 5.7 below.
5.7. The effects of language contact
Previous studies have suggested that informants’ L1, L2, and linguistic dominance play a role on the production of Basque sibilants (Jurado Noriega 2011, Muxika-Loitzate 2017,
Beristain 2018a). Previous analyses have focused on the effects of Spanish on the status of the Basque sibilant merger, as Basque has a sibilant inventory of three voiceless affricates and three voiceless fricatives that differ in their places of articulation whereas that is not the case in northern peninsular Spanish. This dissertation explored the effects 234 of linguistic contact by focusing on the influence of Spanish in the Basque sibilant merger and by testing two different hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that informants’ dominance in Spanish could accelerate their Basque sibilant merger. This hypothesis was confirmed because the BLP score had an effect on the production of Basque affricates and Basque fricatives. More precisely, informants merged their Basque affricates on the one hand and their Basque fricatives on the other to a greater extent when they were more strongly dominant in Spanish, whereas they maintained a more robust contrast if they were more strongly dominant in Basque. Consequently, a greater degree of dominance in
Spanish accelerated the merger of Basque sibilants.
The second hypothesis is that of the “phonic interference” (Weinreich 1953:14).
According to this hypothesis, informants who are more strongly dominant in Spanish may use the same sibilants in Basque and Spanish. Those informants may have a single affricate and a single fricative, which would suggest a collapse of their sibilant repertoires in their two languages. Weinreich (1953) claims that this “phonic interference” (1953:14) occurs when bilingual speakers identify an L2 phoneme with an L1 phoneme and use the
L1 phoneme in the L2. Based on Flege’s (1995) Speech Learning Model (SLM), this interference may also be linked to speakers’ perception. More precisely, the SLM hypothesizes that speakers may be unable to form a new category in their L2 if they consider an L2 sound to be equivalent to an L1 sound (1995:239). Even though this dissertation did not explore informants’ perception, it analyzed the hypothesis “phonic interference” (Weinreich 1953:14) by comparing informants’ Basque and Spanish sibilants. The results suggested that most of the informants did not use the exact same
235 sibilants in Basque and Spanish. More precisely, the majority of the informants had distinct places of articulation for their Basque affricates . Informants also pronounced all Basque fricatives with a more fronted place of articulation than the Spanish fricative.
These results suggested that the majority of informants were not just using their
Spanish sibilants in Basque or the other way around, but they had created separate categories for their Basque sibilants and their Spanish sibilants. According to the BLP scores, 6 of the 8 speakers who had distinct places of articulation for their sibilants in
Basque and Spanish (informants M4, F10, F11, M7, F9, M13) were more strongly dominant in Spanish and had BLP scores that went from -48.05 to -3.542. The results for those informants resemble previous studies that found that bilingual speakers create new categories for their merged L2 sounds that they do not have in their L1. For instance,
Simonet (2010) found that bilingual speakers of Spanish and Catalan who were more strongly dominant in Spanish merged their Catalan mid-back vowels /o, ɔ/ into a single vowel and pronounced it differently from their Spanish /o/ and from the “native-like”
Catalan vowels. More precisely, their merged vowel had a lower articulation than their
Spanish mid-back vowel /o/ and it had an F1 that was in between that of /o/ and /ɔ/ among L1 speakers of Catalan (2010:103). Simonet (2010) explained these results through Flege’s SLM, as he claimed that Spanish dominant speakers may be
236 dissimilating the new category that they created in their L2 from the one they already had in their L1 (2010:107). As in Simonet (2010), it seems that most of the informants in this dissertation who were more strongly dominant in Spanish had created separate categories for their Spanish and Basque sibilants. More precisely, those informants did not consider the Basque and Spanish sibilants to be equivalents and they pronounced the Basque and the Spanish for these informants.
The cases of informants F1 and M1 were interesting because they had also created separate categories for their Basque and Spanish sibilants. However, their results showed that their linguistic dominance in Basque had allowed them to keep a two-way contrast in their production of Basque fricatives, whereas this was not the case among Spanish- dominant informants. Figure 52 shows the strip charts for the CoG of
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Figure 52: Strip charts for the CoG of Basque and Spanish sibilants for informants F1 and M1
As explained earlier, there were 5 speakers who did not have separate categories for their Basque and Spanish sibilants, and there was one speaker (M5) who had separate categories for his fricatives but not for his affricates in Basque and Spanish. Those six informants can be classified in two groups. First of all, informants M6, M12, and M15 were part of the same group because they were the only ones who kept more robust contrasts than the rest of the informants. Figure 53 shows the strip charts of their results for was similar to his Basque and for that reason it is unexpected to find a
238 speaker who produces those sounds differently in a merging variety and who uses the same fronted place of articulation for . Further studies should analyze the linguistic attitudes attached to the pronunciation of the Spanish with a lamino-alveolar place of articulation in Castilian Spanish. Informant M12 had a similar place of articulation for his Basque
had the same place of articulation as their Basque
239
Figure 53: Strip charts for the CoG of Basque and Spanish sibilants for informants M6, M12, and M15
The other group of informants was formed by M3, M5, and F16. Those informants were grouped together because they had a very similar place of articulation for their Basque and Spanish affricates and for their Basque and Spanish fricatives. When looking at their strip charts in figure 54, it is clear that these informants had a total merger of Basque affricates and their Spanish affricate and their Basque fricatives (except for informant M5). As figure 54 shows, informant M5 had a higher mean CoG for in Basque than for
Figure 54: Strip charts for the CoG of Basque and Spanish sibilants for informants M3, M5, and F16
241
In summary, the results in this dissertation showed that Spanish plays a role on the production of Basque sibilants. More specifically, a higher degree of linguistic dominance in Spanish accelerates the merger of Basque affricates on the one hand and of
Basque fricatives on the other. However, the majority of informants do not treat sibilants in Basque and Spanish as equivalent and they have separate categories for them. On the one hand, Basque fricatives
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CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSIONS
6.1. Main findings and contributions
This dissertation analyzed the production of Basque affricates and fricatives in the speech of bilingual speakers and it compared it to their production of the Spanish affricate . The first main finding was that informants’ degree of language dominance had an effect on the place of articulation of Basque sibilants. More precisely, informants who were more strongly dominant in Spanish tended to have a total merger of affricates whereas informants who were more strongly dominant in Basque tended to keep a more robust contrast between
2010:90). Consequently, most informants who kept a contrast in their places of articulation of Basque sibilants did it in the front of the oral cavity and those contrasts were less robust than the ones reported in previous studies that analyzed non-merging varieties of Basque (Hualde 2010, Iglesias et al. 2016). Following Gandarias et al. (2014), the results in this dissertation also question whether “prepalatal” is the most appropriate 243 term to refer to the places of articulation of most of the informants in merging varieties of
Basque, as it seems that younger speakers pronounce
The second main finding was that informants’ age had an effect on their production of Basque sibilants and on their merger. Firstly, the merger was at a more advanced state among younger speakers than among older speakers. Secondly, informants who were older used two types of sibilants that younger speakers did not use.
One of those sibilants was the palatalized /t/ after the high front vowel /i/, which in some instances was pronounced as an affricate. There were four male informants who were older than 43 years old and who pronounced the palatalized /t/ as an affricate in some instances. Two of those informants had a low CoG for their palatalized /t/, which suggests that this sound had a palatal component. That means that those two informants pronounced words like egiten ‘do’ in Standard Basque as [ˈej.t͡ ʃen]. However, this was not the case for any female speaker or for male speakers who were younger than 44 years old. This shows that the current use of the palatalized /t/ is less common in Amorebieta-
Etxano than what Etxebarria (1984) described. The second type of sibilant that was common only among speakers who were older than 43 years old was the epenthetic fricative. This epenthetic fricative was inserted between two vowels and the preceding vowel was the front high vowel /i/ in most cases. There were 5 male speakers and 3 female speakers who pronounced this epenthetic fricative, but most of the tokens came from two male speakers. Those two speakers had a much lower CoG for their epenthetic fricative than for
244 difference in their places of articulation could be that these speakers considered the epenthetic fricative to be a different sound from
/t/ and an epenthetic fricative in their sibilant repertoires that younger speakers did not have.
The third main finding was that a higher degree of linguistic dominance in
Spanish accelerated the merger of Basque affricates on the one hand and of Basque fricatives on the other. However, the majority of informants were not using the same sibilants in Basque and Spanish, but rather they had created separate categories for them
(as in Simonet 2010). More precisely, the majority of Spanish dominant speakers tended to pronounce their Basque affricates with a more fronted place of articulation than their
Spanish affricate and this pattern also occurred with their fricatives, which refutes the hypothesis of “phonic interference” for the majority of the informants. However, there were three informants who seemed to merge all their affricates on the one hand
(informants M3, M5, F16) and all their fricatives on the other (informants M3 and F16).
The fourth main finding was that the few informants who kept a more robust contrast in the places of articulation of their Basque sibilants did not keep separate categories for their sibilants in Basque and Spanish, but the place of articulation for their
Spanish was similar in each case to one of their Basque sibilants.
Informant M12 had a similar place of articulation for his Spanish
had the
245 same place of articulation as their Basque was similar to his Basque
The four findings presented above were based on the analysis of speakers’ CoG values. The results for duration showed that informants did not seem to be using it as an acoustic cue to maintain a contrast between the three Basque affricates and the three
Basque fricatives. However, the speech rate of informants was not controlled and the results for duration should be considered carefully in this dissertation. Further studies could confirm these findings by measuring informants’ speech rate and determining if the differences found across age groups are due to differences in their reading and speaking pace.
This dissertation contributed to our knowledge of bilingual speakers’ sound repertoires in Basque and Spanish. More precisely, it explored the production of Basque sibilants and it analyzed the factors that influenced their production, focusing on the effects of the linguistic contact with Spanish. Unlike previous studies, this dissertation analyzed informants’ place of articulation for their affricates and fricatives in Basque
246 informants’ degree of linguistic dominance in both languages was measured in a gradient manner using the BLP Questionnaire (Birdsong et al. 2012), which contributed to the replicability of the results in this dissertation.
This dissertation also incorporated elements that have not been analyzed by previous studies on Basque sibilants. Firstly, it included a higher number of informants than the majority of previous studies, which have focused on the production data of a limited number of informants (Hualde 2010, Gandarias et al. 2014, Iglesias et al. 2016,
Beristain 2018a). Secondly, this dissertation included a variety of tasks, which gave us the opportunity to find out that informants used two types of sibilants in the interview that did not occur in the reading task. Thirdly, this study analyzed data from informants of different ages, which contrasts with recent studies that focus on the production data of young speakers only (Gandarias et al. 2014, Muxika-Loitzate 2017, Beristain 2018a).
Incorporating these factors allowed us to confirm that there are cross-generational differences in the production of the Basque sibilants that become apparent in different tasks.
Overall, this dissertation contributed to the analysis of the current expansion of the Basque sibilant merger, as it focused on a Bizkaian town located between the city of
Bilbao, which is Spanish dominant, and the town of Gernika, which is Basque dominant.
The results for Amorebieta-Etxano in this dissertation resembled the ones hypothesized for Gernika by Gaminde (2010:15), as the merger was more widespread among younger speakers than among older speakers. However, this dissertation found that the type of task and degree of linguistic dominance were also important factors that played a role in
247 the merger. Moreover, this dissertation differed from Gaminde’s findings (2010) for
Gernika because younger speakers from Amorebieta-Etxano did not use an epenthetic fricative. More precisely, Gaminde (2010) claimed that older generations of speakers from Gernika had a voiced prepalatal epenthetic fricative [ʒ] and he explained that the epenthetic fricative was pronounced as the voiceless apico-alveolar fricative [s̺ ] among younger generations of speakers. Based on Gaminde (2010), one would expect older generations from Gernika to pronounce the word afaria ‘dinner’ in Standard Basque as
[a.fa.ɾi.ˈʒe], whereas younger speakers pronounce it as [a.fa.ɾi.ˈs̺ e] (Gaminde 2010:48).
However, the epenthetic fricative was not used among speakers who were younger than
44 years old in this dissertation, which means that their pronunciation of that word would be [a.ˈfa.ɾi.e].
More generally, this dissertation contributed to the study of phonological mergers among bilingual speakers of different languages. First of all, it provided an example of how to collect data from speakers of different ages using a variety of tasks. More precisely, it showed the importance of using different tasks in order to understand how bilingual speakers’ pronunciation differed when they were more aware of their speech as opposed to more spontaneous conversations. It also provided an example of how to conduct an acoustic analysis and several statistical analyses to determine whether bilingual speakers merged certain sounds or not and the factors that could be influencing their production. Moreover, this dissertation explored the effects of linguistic contact on the merger. First of all, this was done through the BLP Questionnaire, which could be used in other studies on phonological mergers among bilingual speakers. As explained in
248 chapter 2, the BLP Questionnaire is a tool that provides informants a numeric score of linguistic dominance based on their language history, use, proficiency, and attitudes.
Using the BLP Questionnaire in future studies on mergers could be useful because it would allow researchers to place speakers on a continuum and compare their degrees of linguistic dominance (Gertken et al. 2014). The effects of linguistic contact can also be explored by analyzing bilingual speakers’ data in both languages, as in this dissertation. It should be noted here that this dissertation avoided comparing bilingual speakers’ data to that of monolingual speakers of Spanish. Further studies could follow this methodology to explore the effects of linguistic contact on phonological mergers. According to Mack
(2003), in those comparisons monolingual speakers tend to be viewed as “normative language users” (Mack 2003:311) and this can be problematic because it can lead to viewing bilingual speakers’ speech as lacking the complexities of monolingual speakers’ speech. For that reason, this dissertation adopts the “Shared-Separate Approach” (Mack
2003:321) and compares bilingual speakers’ sound repertoires in two languages to determine if they use the same or different sounds in them. This means that the “Shared-
Separate Approach” allows to us to determine whether speakers have “phonic interference” (Weinreich 1953:14) and if they are treating sounds as equivalent in their two languages or not. Further studies on phonological mergers could benefit from approaches like this, as they could determine whether informants have “phonic interference” or not without having to compare their pronunciation to that of monolingual speakers. This can also help researchers hypothesize about the types of phonetic
249 categories that bilingual speakers create and to link their findings to theories on the acquisition of sounds, such as Flege’s (1995) Speech Learning Model (SLM).
6.2. Limitations of this dissertation and future research
This dissertation used the CoG as an acoustic measurement to determine how affricates and fricatives were produced (as in Hualde 2010, Iglesias et al. 2016, Gaminde et al.
2013, Gandarias et al. 2014, Muxika-Loitzate 2017, and Beristain 2018a). Additionally, it analyzed the duration of fricatives as well as the total duration of affricates to determine if informants used this acoustic cue to maintain a contrast between their Basque affricates on the one hand and their Basque fricatives on the other. Even though the CoG has been used successfully to determine the place of articulation of Basque sibilants in previous studies, future studies should consider including more acoustic measurements, such as the skewness or asymmetry (as in Iglesias et al. 2016), and to use them in the analysis of a higher number of informants.
Moreover, further studies of the Basque sibilant merger should take into consideration the frequency of
(2005) in more detail, it became clear that there were certain fricatives and affricatives that were more frequent than others. In the case of fricatives, Gaminde et al. (2005) grouped together and claimed that they constituted 10.97% of the total 250 amount of consonants. However,
Gaminde et al. (2005) corresponded to the etymological
Consequently, we would expect the frequency of the etimological
1.44% of the total amount of consonants (2005:191). In summary, affricates are less frequent than fricatives and there are certain sibilants that have a lower frequency than others (such as
Another factor that future studies should consider is analyzing affricates in coda position and word-finally, two contexts where affricates have not been widely analyzed.
In this dissertation, there were 382 tokens that were excluded because they had the
Basque affricate word-finally. This made the results more comparable to those of
Spanish. However, future studies should consider exploring the places of articulation of affricates in that context. Moreover, it would be interesting to analyze the places of articulation in words that contain two sibilants, such as ezkontza ‘wedding’ and to see
251 whether the place of articulation of the first sibilant may have an effect on the second one.
Future analyses of Basque sibilants should explore the production of a higher number of informants in merging varieties of Basque that have not been widely analyzed before. This would provide a more accurate view of the current status of the sibilant merger in Bizkaia and Araba. It would also be interesting to conduct a perception study in those varieties of Basque to shed some light on the CoG threshold necessary for speakers to determine if two sibilants are perceptually merged or not.
Finally, it would be of interest to see if Basque sibilants are taught at schools and adult classes in sibilant merging locations and to explore instructors’ sibilant repertoires.
Preliminary data from one interview conducted with a teacher in Bizkaia suggests that the places of articulation of Basque sibilants are not always taught at schools, and instead of that the current aim of some schools may be to encourage younger generations to speak the language. Another question that remains unanswered is whether learners may be able to acquire the contrast in the places of articulation of sibilants if they are exposed to a non-merging variety in the classroom but not in other contexts in their everyday lives.
252
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APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS IN BASQUE
Orain galdera batzuk egingo dizkizut. Batzuetan zure bizimoduari buruzko galderak izango dira eta beste batzuetan gai baten inguruan duzun iritziari buruz galdetuko dizut. Zure erantzunak justifikatu ditzakezu, ez dago denbora mugarik. • 18-34 urte bitarteakoak: • Ikasten ari zara edo lan egiten duzu? Zer ikasten duzu? Non eta zertan egiten duzu lan? Zenbat denbora egon zara toki horretan lan egiten? Hori egin baino lehen non egiten zenuen lan? • Zein da zure musika talderik gustokoena? Talde horren kontzerturik ikusi duzu? • Telebista ikusten duzu? Zein da zure telebista saiorik gustokoena? Zein hizkuntzatan ikusten duzu? • Zein da zure janaririk gustokoena eta zergatik? • Kirola gustoko duzu? Zein da gustokoen duzun kirola? • Zer egingo duzu udako oporretan? Nonbaitera zoaz udako oporrak pasatzen? Zer egin zenuen pasadan urteko udako oporretan? Zer da oporretatik gehien gustatzen zaizuna? Eta gutxien? • Munduko edozein leku bisitatzeko aukera izango bazenu, zein leku aukeratuko zenuke? Bertan biziko zinateke? Zergatik? • Zure ustez, gaur egun Espainian zaila da gazteentzat lana aurkitzea? Errezagoa da beste herrialde batzuetan? Kanpora joateko asmorik ba al duzu? Zer uste duzu Espainiako krisiari buruz? • Imajinatzen dut udan herri-jairen batera joango zarela. Zein herri edo hiriko jaiak dira zure gustokoenak eta zergatik? Gustoko dituzu San Ferminak? Zer pentsatzen duzu Zornotzako jaiei buruz? • 35-54 urte bitartekoak: • Ikasten ari zara edo lan egiten duzu? Zertan egiten duzu lan? • Zein da zure musika talderik gustokoena? Talde horren kontzerturik ikusi duzu? • Telebista ikusten duzu? Zein da zure telebista saiorik gustokoena? Zein hizkuntzatan ikusten duzu? • Sukaldari ona zarela esango zenuke? Zein da hobeto prestatzen duzun janaria? Nola prestatzen duzu? • Kirola gustoko duzu? Zein da zure kirolik gustokoena? Kirolik praktikatzen al duzu?
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• Gogoratzen dituzu Zornotzako jaiak orain dela 10 urte? Oso desberdinak ziren orduan? Badago lehengo jaietatik faltan botatzen duzun zerbait? Zerbait aldatuko zenuke aurtengo jaietatik? • Zein da zure bizitzan bisitatu duzun lekurik politena? Hor biziko zinateke? • Zer gomendatuko zenioke Euskal Herrira lehenengo aldiz datorren turista bati? Zein leku bisitatzea gomendatuko zenioke? Ekintza bereziren bat egitea gomendatuko zenioke? • +54 urtekoak: • Zure familia Zornotzakoa da? Beti bizi izan zara Zornotzan? Zer da herritik gustokoen duzuna? Eta gustuko ez duzuna? • Sukaldari ona zarela esango zenuke? Zein da hobeto prestatzen duzun janaria? • Zer uste duzu gaur egun Espainian dagoen krisialdiari buruz? Zer gomendatuko zenioke lanik aurkitzen ez duen 30 urteko gazte bati? Gaur egun gazteek dituzten arazoak eta orain dela 40 urte zituzten arazoak oso desberdinak dira? • Berdinak dira gaur egungo Zornotzako jaiak eta lehengoak? Oso desberdinak ziren orduan? Badago lehengo jaietatik faltan botatzen duzun zerbait? Zerbait aldatuko zenuke aurtengo jaietatik? • Gazte asko ezin da bere telefono mugikorrik gabe bizi. Nola ikusten duzu hori? Asko erabiltzen duzu zuk zure telefonoa? • Zein da zure bizitzan bisitatu duzun lekurik politena? Hor biziko zinateke? • Zer gomendatuko zenioke Euskal Herrira lehenengo aldiz datorren turista bati? Zein leku bisitatzea gomendatuko zenioke? Ekintza bereziren bat egitea gomendatuko zenioke?
The interview has been translated to English for the purposes of this dissertation:
I am going to ask you some questions now. They will be questions about your life style and about your opinion about different topics. You can justify your answers, there is no time limit. • Questions for informants who are between 18-34 years old: • Do you study or do you work? What do you study? What is your job? Where do you work? How long have you been working there for? Prior to that, have you worked somewhere else? • What is your favorite music group? Have you ever been to any of their concerts? • Do you watch TV? Which is your favorite TV show? In which language do you watch TV? • What is your favorite food? Why? • Do you like sports? What is your favorite sport? • What are you doing for your Summer holidays? Are you travelling? What did you do during the Summer last year? What is your favorite part of Summer holidays? And something you do not like about Summer holidays?
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• If you could visit any place in the world, which place would it be? Would you live there? Why? • Do you think it is difficult for young people to find a job in Spain right now? How is it in other countries? Do you have any intention of traveling abroad? What is your opinion about the economic crisis in Spain? • I imagine you may be going to a festival during the Summer. What are your favorite Summer festivals and why? Do you like the San Fermin? What do you think about the festivals of Amorebieta-Etxano? • Questions for informants who are between 35-54 years old: • Do you study or do you work? What do you study? What is your job? Where do you work? How long have you been working there for? Prior to that, have you worked somewhere else? • What is your favorite music group? Have you ever been to any of their concerts? • Do you watch TV? Which is your favorite TV show? In which language do you watch TV? • Can you cook? Could you name your best dish? How do you prepare it? • Do you like sports? What is your favorite sport? Do you practice sports? • Do you remember the festivals in Amorebieta-Etxano 10 years ago? Would you say they were different from nowadays? Is there anything you miss from those festivals nowadays? Would you change anything in the festivals this year? • What is the most beautiful place you have visited in your life? Would you live there? • What would you recommend to a tourist that visits the Basque Country for the first time? Which place would you recommend them to visit? Would you recommend them any activity? • Questions for informants who are older than 55 years old: • Is your family from Amorebieta-Etxano? Have you always lived in Amorebieta- Etxano? What do you like the most about the town? And the least? • Can you cook? Could you name your best dish? • What is your opinion about the crisis in Spain? What would you tell a 30 year old who cannot find a job? Are the difficulties that young people face nowadays different from those 40 years ago? • Are the festivals in Amorebieta-Etxano similar to those in previous years? Is there anything you miss from those festivals nowadays? Would you change anything in the festivals this year? • There are people who cannot live without their cellphones nowadays. What is your opinion about that? Do you use your cellphone a lot? • What is the most beautiful place you have visited in your life? Would you live there? • What would you recommend to a tourist that visits the Basque Country for the first time? Which place would you recommend them to visit? Would you recommend them any activity? 265
APPENDIX B: READING TASK IN BASQUE
Sentences with the words of interest containing
Bilboko idazle horri sari bat eman diote gaur. ‘They gave an award to the writer from Bilbao today.’ Anek larunbatean sei kafe hartu zituen. ‘Ane drank six coffees on Saturday.’ Dokumentu guztiak sailkatu zenituen herenegun. ‘You classified all the documents two days ago.’ Lagun batek piztu du su hori erregailuarekin. ‘A friend started the fire with a lighter.’ Olentzerok ikatza saku beltz batean darama. ‘Olentzero10 carries the coal in a black bag.’ Nire amak eman zidan soineko hau pasadan urtean. ‘My mom gave me this dress last year.’ Kafe bat prestatu dut zu etorri zarenean. ‘I made a coffee when you arrived.’ Julen ikastolara poz-pozik doa egunero. ‘Julen goes to school very happy everyday.’ Lehorgailuko arropak siku daudela uste dugu guk. ‘We think that the clothes in the drier are already dry.’ Nire osaba bezain sendoa da nire lehengusua. ‘My cousin is as strong as my uncle.’ Gure astoak daraman zaman daude sagarrak. ‘The apples are in the load that our donkey is carrying.’ Ez dakit bulegoan zer egin behar dudan orain. ‘I do not know what I need to do at the office right now.’ Maitaneren amama ozen eta argi mintzatu zen. ‘Maitane’s grandmother spoke loud and clear.’
10 Basque character that represents a coalman who goes down the mountain every 24th of December in order to give presents to the children. 266
Sendagai guzti horiek zoratu egingo zaituzte. ‘All those pills are going to drive you crazy.’ Zure alaba pilo bat hazi da urte honetan. ‘Your daughter grew up a lot this year.’ Eguerdian Maitanek ez du gustora bazkaldu. ‘Maitane did not have lunch at ease.’ Finalean Gurpegik zazpi gol sartu ditu. ‘Gurpegi scored seven goals in the final.’ Liburu-dendan fikzio saila da nire gustokoena. ‘The fiction section is my favorite at the book store.’ Daukazun arazoaren koxka hori da hain zuzen ere. ‘That is the key of the problem that you have.’ Etxean Amaiaren zain egon gara bi ordu. ‘We have been waiting for Amaia at home for two hours.’ Ane Itziar bezain xarmangarria zela uste genuen. ‘We thought that Ane was as beautiful as Itziar.’ Hamaikak inguruan hasi da rock kontzertu hori. ‘The rock concert started at around eleven.’ Horko dendara joan zen Xabier janaria erosten. ‘Xabier went to that store to buy food.’ Eltxoek odol asko xurgatu zioten oihanean. ‘The mosquitoes sucked her/his blood in the jungle.’ Izugarrizko haragi-xafla jan duzu gaur tabernan. ‘You ate an incredible steak in the bar today.’ Estatu Batuetan bizi naiz nire familiarekin. ‘I live in the United States with my family.’ Hiltzailearen izena esate hutsak beldurra ematen du. ‘Even saying the name of the murderer is scary.’ Etxeko giltza jausi zaio eskolarako bidean. ‘He/She dropped the keys in his/her way to school.’ Josebak eta biok zorte oso txarra daukagu. ‘Joseba and I have very bad luck.’ Lanean jarraitzeko lokuluxka labur bat behar dugu. ‘We need to take a nap in order to continue working.’ Min handia hartu du saman kirola egiteagatik. ‘He/She hurt her neck when practicing sports.’
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Iñakiren alabak aste bat darama oporretan. ‘Iñaki’s daughter has been on vacation for a week.’ Umeok errekara zaborra bota genuen atzo. ‘The children threw trash to the river yesterday.’ Bere umeak oso ondo hezi dituzte guraso horiek. ‘Those parents raised their children very well.’ Bere adinerako oso baxua dela pentsatzen dut nik. ‘I think that he/she is too short for his/her age.’ Hamar urteko umea zigortu egin dute gurasoek. ‘The parents grounded the ten-year-old child.’ Hori egin du umeak isil daitezan behingoz. ‘He/She did that so that the children would be in silence.’ Anek bere familia ezagutu nahi du egunen batean. ‘Ane wants to meet her family one day.’ Zuek pozaren-pozez jauzi egiten duzue. ‘You are so happy that you are jumping.’ Erosi dugun salda goxo dagoela uste dugu. ‘I think that the soup we bought is tasty.’ Nire lehengusinak ur asko edan du eguerdian. ‘Mi cousin drank a lot of water at noon.’ Peio izan zen atzo azkena Laudioko maratoian. ‘Peio was the last one in the marathon of Laudio.’ Mutilak irrist egin du izotza zegoelako lurrean. ‘The boy slipped because there was ice in the floor.’ Eubako baserriko soroa ondo horniturik dago. ‘The land at the farm in Euba is stocked.’ Ainhoak abuztuan ezti pote bat eman zigun. ‘Ainhoa gave us a honey pot in August.’ Daramatzazun prakak oso politak direla uste dut. ‘I think that the pants you are wearing are nice.’ Maitaneren alabak jolasa ekarri du eskolara. ‘Maitane’s daughter brought the toy to school.’ Historiako azterketa zaila iruditu zaizue. ‘You tought that the history exam was difficult.’ Gizon horrek alaba gazte bat dauka Lituanian. ‘That man has a young daughter in Lithuania.’
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Ume jaioberria gose dela ematen du orain. ‘It looks like the baby is hungry now.’ Alderdi politikoak xede bat dauka bere programan. ‘The political party has an objective in their program.’ Bere jarreragatik zigor espediente bat dauka. ‘She/ he has a disciplinary record because of her/ his attitude.’ Belatxikietan elur pixka bat geratzen da oraindik. ‘There is still a little bit of snow in Belatxikieta.’ Telefono mugikor grisa apurtu egin zitzaidan. ‘The gray cellphone died on me.’ Markinako gizon zoroa etxera etorri da gaur. ‘The mad man from Markina came home today.’ Mireni belarrira xuxurlatu diozuna egia da. ‘What you whispered to Miren’s ear is true.’ Sukaldeko lapiko zahar hori bota egin dut. ‘I threw that old pot that was in the kitchen.’ Nire amamak bizitzaz gozatu zuela esaten zuen. ‘Mi grandma used to say that she enjoyed life.’ Umeak botilako ur gazi hori edan du lehen. ‘The child drank the salty water from the bottle.’ Egin duzun akatsa xumea dela iruditu zait. ‘I thought that your mistake was tiny.’ Jonek argi guztiak piztu ditu bere etxean. ‘Jone switched on all the lights at her house’/ ‘John switched on all the lights at his house.’ Frantziako herri batean gaztelu polit ugari daude. ‘There are many beautiful castles in a French town.’ Dendariak litro bat esne oparitu digu gaur. ‘The store assistant gave us a liter of milk.’ Astean behin eskolan heziketa fisikoa egiten dugu. ‘We do physical education at school twice per week.’ Mahastiaren inguruan hesi bat jarri duzue zuek. ‘You built a fence around the vineyard.’ Txori bat ikusi dut zeru grisean hegaz egiten. ‘I saw a bird flying in the gray sky.’ Zuk ez diozu ezer esan nire arazoari buruz. ‘You did not tell him/her anything about my problem.’ 269
Antton arrantzalea izan zen gaztea zenean. ‘Antton used to be a fisherman when he was young.’ Eskolan hirurogei irakasle daude momentu honetan. ‘There are sixty teachers at the school right now.’ Bilboko ertzaintza dabil kasu hori orain aztertzen. ‘The police from Bilbao is analyzing that case right now.’ Amak eman dio eskua ume txikitxoari. ‘The mom gave her hand to the child.’ Neskak etxekolanak pixkanaka-pixkanaka egin ditu. ‘The girl did her homework little by little.’ Aulki gris batzuetan eseri ziren gonbidatuak. ‘The guests sat down in the gray chairs.’ Paper zurian lerro zuzen bat marraztu du Danik. ‘Dani draw a line in the white paper.’ Andereñoak Markel gaixo dagoela esan dit. ‘Markel’s teacher told me that he is sick.’ Amaiak bizikleta astun eta zahar bat dauka. ‘Amaia has a heavy and old bike.’ Dutxatzen naizenean xaboi asko erabiltzen dut. ‘When I shower I use a lot of soap.’ Zure etxeko atea zabalik utzi duzu goizean. ‘You left the door to your house open this morning.’ Gelako jostailuak kaxa batean sartu ditu. ‘He/She put the toys that were in the bedroom in a box.’ Leirek nire helbidea eskatu dit gutuna bidaltzeko. ‘Leire asked me for my address in order to send me the letter.’ Orrazi horretako ile luze hori ez da nirea. ‘The long hair of that hairbrush is not mine.’ Klaseko ordezkariak ezezko erantzuna eman digu. ‘The class representative gave us a negative response.’ Zornotzako gazteek xarma berezia daukate. ‘Young people from Zornotza are charming.’
Sentences with the words of interest containing
‘My mom bought a small computer.’ Gizon horrek artikulu garrantzitsu ugari idatzi ditu. ‘That man has written many important articles.’ Lekeitioko itsasontziko txo horrek hamar urte ditu. ‘The boy that helps in the boat from Lekeitio is ten years old.’ Ez dut batere gustoko iritzi publikoaren jarrera. ‘I do not like the attitude of the public opinion.’ Iñigo izan da ideia txar horren sortzailea. ‘Iñigo is the creator of that bad idea.’ Edurneren amak ontzi polit bat dauka Lagan. ‘Edurne’s mom has a beautiful boat in Laga.’ Igerilekura goaz etzi zuzenbideko ikasleak. ‘The law students are going to the swimming pool the day after tomorrow.’ Ezkontzara soineko itsusi bat eraman zenuen. ‘You wore an ugly dress to the wedding.’ Zuek biok gehiegi hitz egiten duzue. ‘You two talk too much.’ Futbol kromo guztiak erakutsi zenizkidan atzo. ‘You showed me all the soccer stickers yesterday.’ Poloniako herri batera iritsi da Goizargiren alaba. ‘Goizargi’s daughter arrived at a village in Poland.’ Anak bere apunteak utzi dizkit gaur goizean. ‘Ana lent me her notes this morning.’ Tximeleta batzuek bizitza oso laburra dute. ‘Some butterflies have a short life.’ Estatu Batuetan otso bat ikusi nuen. ‘I saw a wolf in the United States.’ Poliziak bilete faltsu bat zela ikusi zuen. ‘The police saw that it was a false bill.’ Ontzi horretan hamar arrantzale daudela uste dute. ‘They think that there are ten fishermen in that boat.’ Iskander etorri zen atzo Estatu Batuetatik. ‘Iskander came from the United States yesterday.’ Ahoan daukazun zotza tabernan hartu duzu. ‘You took the toothpick that you have in your mouth in the bar.’ Maialen Lujanbio bertsolari oso famatu bat da. 271
‘Maialen Lujanbio is a famous bertsolari.’11 Behin ere ez zuen etsi Edurneren alabak. ‘Edurne’s daughter did not give up once.’ Alkateak turismoa bultzatu zuen bere lanaz. ‘The mayor promoted the tourism with her/his work.’ Santanderrera goaz etzi oporrak pasatzera. ‘We are going on vacation to Santander the day after tomorrow.’ Parkeko banku batean atso zahar bat ikusi dut. ‘I saw an elderly person in a bench at the park.’ Istripuaren ondoren itsu geratu zen mutila. ‘After the accident the boy could not see.’ Nire osabak duen untxia oso polita da. ‘My uncle’s rabbit is very beautiful.’ Arropa eta telebista ebatsi zizkioten Mikeli. ‘They stole Mikel’s clothes and TV.’ Zure gelako atea itxi duzunean beldurtu naiz. ‘I got scared when you closed the door in your room.’ Zaila iruditzen zait funtsezko matematikako lana. ‘I think that the basic Math homework is difficult.’ Kontzertura bi mila pertsona etorri ziren atzo. ‘Two thousand people came to the concert yesterday.’ Txakurra ohean etzan zen astelehenean. ‘The dog lay in bed on Monday.’ Abesti polit hura entzun genuen bart tabernan. ‘We heard that beautiful song in the bar yesterday.’ Ehun kiloko harri bat altxatu du Perurenak gaur. ‘Perurena lifted a one-hundred-kilogram stone today.’ Goizeko zortzietan ogi txigortu zati bat jan dugu. ‘We ate a toast at eight in the morning.’ Jaietara ez joatea ebatzi zenuten azkenean. ‘You decided not to go to the festivals at the end.’ Gaur supermerkatuan poltsa bat erosi dugu. ‘We bought a bag at the supermarket today.’ Ainhoaren amaren etxea oso handia da. ‘Ainhoa’s mom’s house is very big.’
11 type of singer who improvises in Basque 272
Madrilera heltzeko oso gutxi geratzen zaizue. ‘You will be arriving at Madrid soon.’ Mendi magaletik itsasontzi ugari ikus daitezke. ‘One can see many boats from the slope of the mountain.’ Umeek bere gelan fitxa bat egin behar dute. ‘The children need to complete a handout in their class.’ Imanolek hamaika bertso abestu zizkigun. ‘Imanol sang many bertso to us.’ Zure urtebetetzea martxoan ospatuko dugu ‘We are going to celebrate your birthday in March.’ Naiarak igandean letxuga hori garbitu zuen. ‘Naiara cleaned that lettuce on Sunday.’ Orain dela asko gaztetxe bat zegoen Zornotzan. ‘A long time ago there was a gaztetxe in Zornotza.’ Ezkontzan Julenek dantza egin zuen Unairekin. ‘Julen danced with Unai at the wedding.’
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APPENDIX C. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS IN SPANISH
Ahora te voy a hacer algunas preguntas. Serán preguntas sobre tu estilo de vida y tu opinión sobre diferentes temas. Puedes explicar tus respuestas, no hay límite de tiempo. • Questions for participants who are between 18-34 years old: • ¿Cuál es la época del año que más te gusta? ¿Por qué? • ¿Puedes describir un fin de semana habitual para ti? • ¿Te gusta ir al cine? ¿Por qué? • ¿Te gusta ver series en la televisión/ series en el ordenador? ¿Por qué? • ¿Cuál es tu película favorita? • ¿Con qué frecuencia usas tu móvil a lo largo del día? • ¿Usas las redes sociales (como por ejemplo, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)? • ¿A qué edad comenzaste a usar las redes sociales? • ¿Cuál es tu red social favorita y por qué? • Cuando subes algún comentario a las redes sociales, ¿en qué idioma lo subes? • ¿Qué consejo le darías a una persona que no tiene experiencia con las redes sociales y que piensa comenzar a usarlas? • Hoy en día hay muchas personas que hacen sus compras por Internet. ¿Cuáles son las ventajas y desventajas de esto? • ¿Qué opinas de la situación laboral en el País Vasco ahora mismo? • ¿Crees que es fácil o difícil que la gente joven se independice en el País Vasco ahora mismo? • Questions for participants who are between 35-54 years old: • ¿Cuál es la época del año que más te gusta? ¿Por qué? • ¿Puedes describir un fin de semana habitual para ti? • ¿Te gusta ir al cine? ¿Por qué? • ¿Cuál es tu película favorita? • ¿Usas las redes sociales (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) en tu día a día? ¿Crees que ha cambiado el uso de las redes sociales en los últimos diez años? • Ahora vamos a hablar un poco del País Vasco. ¿Qué opinas de la situación laboral en el País Vasco ahora mismo? ¿Crees que es mejor o peor que hace diez años? • ¿Crees que es fácil o difícil que la gente joven se independice en el País Vasco ahora mismo?
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• Y ahora vamos a hablar sobre Amorebieta. ¿Qué es lo que más te gusta de Amorebieta? • Si tuvieras que cambiar algo de Amorebieta, ¿qué sería? • ¿Qué opinas sobre el transporte público que se puede usar para ir desde Amorebieta a otros pueblos y ciudades? (el tren y el autobús). • ¿Te gusta ese transporte? • ¿Está bien o mal comunicado Amorebieta? • Questions for participants who are older than 55 years old: • ¿Cuál es la época del año que más te gusta? ¿Por qué? • ¿Cuál es tu actividad favorita? • ¿Te gusta ver películas o series en la televisión? ¿Podrías describir tu película o serie favorita? • Ahora vamos a hablar un poco de Amorebieta. ¿Qué es lo que más te gusta de Amorebieta? • Si tuvieras que cambiar algo de Amorebieta, ¿qué sería? • ¿Qué opinas sobre el transporte público que se puede usar para ir desde Amorebieta a otros pueblos y ciudades? (el tren y el autobús). • ¿Te gusta ese transporte? • ¿Está bien o mal comunicado Amorebieta? • ¿Crees que la gente habla más euskera o castellano en el pueblo? • ¿Y en las escuelas? ¿se usa más el euskera o el castellano? ¿esto era así cuando ibas a la escuela? • En las últimas décadas ha habido actividades para fomentar el uso del euskera (por ejemplo, tenemos Euskaraldia, la Korrika, etc. ). ¿Ha habido siempre este tipo de iniciativa desde que eras pequeño/ pequeña, o crees que esto ha cambiado?
The interview has been translated to English for the purposes of this dissertation:
Now I am going to ask you some questions. These will be questions about your life style and your opinion about different topics. You can explain your answers, there is no time limit.
• Questions for informants who are between 18-34 years old: • What is your favorite time of the year? Why? • Can you describe a typical weekend for you? • Do you like going to the movie theatre? Why? • Do you like watching shows on TV or the computer? Why? • What is your favorite movie? • How frequently do you look at your cellphone during the day? • Do you use social media (like Facebook, Instagram, etc.)? o When did you start using social media?
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o Which one is your favorite social media and why? o When you comment in social media, which language do you use? o What would be your advice to a person who does not have experience with social media and who would like to start using them? • Nowadays, there are many people who shop on the Internet. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this? • What do you think of the job market in the Basque Country right now? • Do you think it is easy or difficult for young people to become independent in the Basque Country right now? • Questions for informants who are between 35-54 years old: • What is your favorite time of the year? Why? • Can you describe a typical weekend for you? • Do you like going to the movie theatre? Why? • Do you like watching shows on TV or the computer? Why? • Do you use social media (like Facebook, Instagram, etc.) in your everyday life? Do you think that the use of social media has changed in the last 10 years? • Now we are going to talk a little but about the Basque Country. What do you think of the job market in the Basque Country right now? Is it better or worse than 10 years ago? • Do you think it is easy or difficult for young people to become independent in the Basque Country right now? • And now we are going to talk about Amorebieta. What do you like the most about Amorebieta? • If you had to change something about Amorebieta, what would it be? • What do you think about public transportation that can be used to go from Amorebieta to other towns and cities? (the train and the bus). o Do you like the public transportation? o Is Amorebieta well or badly communicated? • Questions for participants who are older than 55 years old: • What is your favorite time of the year? Why? • What is your favorite activity? • Do you like watching movies or shows on TV? Could you describe your favorite movie or TV show? • And now we are going to talk about Amorebieta. What do you like most about Amorebieta? • If you had to change something about Amorebieta, what would it be? • What do you think about public transportation that can be used to go from Amorebieta to other towns and cities? (the train and the bus). o Do you like the public transportation? o Is Amorebieta well or badly communicated? • Do you think that people speak more Basque or Spanish in the town? • What about schools? Do they use Basque or Spanish more? Was it the same way when you went to school? 276
• In the last decades there have been several activities to promote the use of Basque (such as Euskaraldia, korrika, etc.). Have there always been these types of initiatives since you were a child or do you think this has changed?
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APPENDIX D. READING TASK IN SPANISH
El chaval lleva las arras a la boda. ‘The young man carried the wedding coins.’ Jugamos al parchís los lunes en el bar. ‘We play parchís at the bar on Mondays.’ El equipo vasco fichó a cuatro jugadores. ‘The Basque team signed four players.’ El niño chilló mucho ese día. ‘The child shouted a lot that day.’ Belén echó el sillón viejo hace un año. Belén threw the old armchair away a year ago. Ha ocurrido este siglo ante nuestros ojos. ‘It happened this century in front of our eyes.’ Quieres que estén atrás en el auditorio. ‘You want them to be at the back in the auditorium.’ La blusa se secó al colgarla al revés en el balcón. ‘The blouse got dry when hanging it upside down in the balcony.’ He hecho una chapa con el nombre de mi perro. ‘I created a metal pet ID tag with the name of my dog.’ No estaba listo para los autos de choque. ‘I/ She/ He was not ready for the bumper cars.’ En la competición de París el listón estaba alto. ‘The standards were very high at the competition in Paris.’ Marta mascó su chicle rápidamente. ‘Marta chewed her gum quickly.’ Pedro saca el hacha para cortar leña. ‘Pedro takes out his ax to cut firewood.’ El campo no estaba así de seco el año pasado. ‘The countryside was not this dry last year.’ La crisis comenzó cuando salí del país. ‘The crisis started when I left the country.’ 278
Se sintió mal al pisar un bicho en la calle. ‘She/ He felt bad when she/ he stepped on a bug in the street.’ Ayer me pesé en una superficie lisa en la calle. ‘Yesterday I weighted myself on a flat surface in the street.’ El jugador casi chocó con otro en el campo. ‘The player almost bumped into another one in the field.’
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