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Experimental Approaches to Sound Variation: a Sociophonetic Study of Labial and Velar Fricatives and Approximants in Argentine Spanish

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Experimental Approaches to Sound Variation: a Sociophonetic Study of Labial and Velar Fricatives and Approximants in Argentine Spanish Experimental Approaches to Sound Variation: a Sociophonetic Study of Labial and Velar Fricatives and Approximants in Argentine Spanish by Natalia Mazzaro A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Toronto © by Natalia Mazzaro (2011) Experimental Approaches to Sound Variation: a Sociophonetic Study of Labial and Velar Fricatives and Approximants in Argentine Spanish Natalia Mazzaro Doctor in Philosophy Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Toronto 2011 Abstract The alternation between labial and velar fricatives (e.g. [x]uego fuego ‘fire’) and labial and velar approximants (e.g. a[ ɣ]uelo abuelo ‘grandfather’) frequently co-occur in disparate Spanish dialects (Colombia, New Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Chile, among others). I hypothesize that these alternations are triggered by the perceptual similarity between such variants in the context of [u] and [w]. I further hypothesize that the spread of these variables to the upper layers of society is prevented by formal education, since orthography can block sound change. Although the labio-velar alternations have been observed before, there are few experimental studies addressing their acoustic and perceptual motivations. Yet, the only way to understand the mechanisms of sound variation and change is to analyze the physical, acoustic and perceptual characteristics of the sounds involved. ii This dissertation uniquely combines three methodologies of data elicitation in order to achieve a better understanding of the alternations. Vernacular speech was collected through sociolinguistic interviews. Contextually controlled target words were elicited via a picture naming task. Finally, the hypothesis that the alternations were driven by the perceptual similarity between the sounds was tested via an AX discrimination test. The sociolinguistic data was correlated with the results from the perception experiment to determine whether more variation in speech correlates with higher rates of confusion in perception. The results reveal that Education and Following Context are two of the most powerful factor groups that influence the alternations. The alternation is almost exclusively found before the diphthongs [we, wi], and in stressed syllables. Knowing the orthography plays an important role in blocking the diffusion of this perceptually driven variation. The same factors affecting the variation in sociolinguistics interviews were found to be significant in increasing the confusion between [f] ~ [x] and [ β] ~ [ ɣ] in the perception experiment. The acoustic analysis (centre of gravity and F2 at vowel onset), however, did not support the hypothesis regarding the similarity of labial and velar fricatives and approximants. iii Acknowledgements Como dice Antoine de Saint-Exupéry en El Principito, es el tiempo que uno invierte en algo lo que lo hace tan único y valioso. Abordé este tema por primera vez en un curso que tomé con Laura Colantoni hace seis años. Desde entonces ha estado en mi cabeza y ocupado interminables horas de trabajo. Le debo a este estudio casi todo lo que aprendí en estos seis años. Primero que nada, quiero expresar mi agradecimiento profundo y sincero a la gente de Caá Catí, quien colaboró con este proyecto de muchas maneras: Irene Pérez me hospedó en su casa y me contactó con Javier Brisuela, quien a su vez me presentó a todos sus conocidos y amigos en Caá Catí. I thank the Language Variation and Change (LVC) group in the Linguistics department at the University of Toronto, who gave me a lot good ideas to conduct my research and analyze the data. Thank you to Bridget Jankowsky for helping me with the sociolinguistic analysis and to Naomi Nagy for answering my emails and questions. I also thank Rebecca Roeder for her help in the design of the perception experiment. My frequent feelings of frustration and lack of hopes throughout the process made me a bit sour at times, so I am grateful to all those who stood by me with sympathetic ears and encouraging words. My friends Deepa, Suat, Antonio, Donna, and Bridget have made my work at the library a pleasant time. Yasaman Rafat, Anna Limanni, Tanya Batterby, and Irina Marinescu have given me support and advice at the right time. The members of the committee have given me feedback throughout the writing of this dissertation. Sali Tagliamonte has provided a lot of useful input in the sociolinguistic analysis. Cristina Cuervo has given me a different perspective on most of the topics reviewed in this dissertation and a lot of important tips for editing this work. I appreciated Jack Chambers’ valuable comments and contributions toward the revision. Last, but not least, I want to thank José Ignacio Hualde for being the external examiner and for his critical comments on an earlier draft of this dissertation. iv I thank Laura Colantoni, my supervisor, for mentoring me and supporting me throughout this work. Her sense of urgency allowed me to complete this project in a timely manner. She encouraged me with a JUERZA when I needed it most. Mil gracias a Martín por ayudarme en TODO, por fabricar un software para el análisis sociolingüístico de los sonidos de las entrevistas, por enseñarme todo lo que sé de estadística, por auxiliarme económicamente cuando mi sueldo de estudiante graduada no me alcanzaba (en realidad NUNCA me alcanzó) cuando Word hacia lo que quería, y por prometerme una cámara para estimularme a que terminara la tesis. ¡A mamá! Gracias por su tremendo esfuerzo en la transcripción y el análisis de las entrevistas. Sólo una madre podría pasarse ocho meses transcribiendo cuarenta y cinco entrevistas y trabajando en un proyecto para el que no recibió un solo peso. Mejor dicho, sólo ESTA madre podría haberlo hecho. Creo que me debo un gracias a mí misma también, por no haberme dado por vencida todas esas veces. v Table of Contents Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. x List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xiii Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Literature Review and Hypotheses ................................................................................ 6 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 On the origin of sound change ............................................................................................ 6 2.2.1 The speaker as a source of sound change ............................................................... 6 2.2.2 The listener as a source of sound change ................................................................ 9 2.2.3 Literacy and the perception of sounds .................................................................. 11 2.3 The diffusion of sound variation and change .................................................................... 13 2.4 Diachronic evidence .......................................................................................................... 16 2.4.1 The shift affecting /b/ ............................................................................................ 16 2.4.2 The shift affecting /f/ ............................................................................................ 18 2.5 The acoustic characteristics of labial and velar fricatives [f, x] and approximants [ β, ɣ] ....................................................................................................................................... 20 2.6 Previous studies related to labio-velar alternations .......................................................... 26 2.7 Hypotheses ........................................................................................................................ 35 Chapter 3 Study Design and Methods .......................................................................................... 40 3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 40 3.2 Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 40 3.2.1 Sociolinguistic interviews ..................................................................................... 40 3.2.2 Production experiment .......................................................................................... 44 3.2.3 Perception experiment .......................................................................................... 45 vi 3.3 The location: Caá Catí city ............................................................................................... 47 3.4 Caá Catí Spanish in contact with Guaraní ........................................................................ 49 3.5 Sample population and participants .................................................................................. 50 3.6 Data analysis ..................................................................................................................... 52 3.6.1 Sociolinguistic interviews ....................................................................................
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