Exceptional Hiatuses in Spanish:An Extension of Cabré & Prieto (2006)

BRYAN KORONKIEWICZUniversity of Illinois at Chicagobkoron2@uic.edu

MARCH 19, 2010 UIC Talks in Linguistics

introduction

Rising sonority vocoid sequences Diphthong

Unstressed High Vowel + Mid/Low Vowel Mario ['ma.rjo], manual [ma.'nwal]

Hiatus Stressed High Vowel + Mid/Low Vowel María [ma.'ri.a], púa ['pu.a]

introduction

Exceptional hiatuses Unstressed High Vowel + Mid/Low Vowel

Expected pronunciation: Diphthong piano ['pja.no]

Alternate pronunciation: Hiatus piano [pi.'a.no]

review of the literature

Hualde (1999, 2002), Colina (1999) Exceptional hiatuses preferred

Word-initial position diadema [di.a.'δe.ma] vs. historia [is.to.rja]

Closer to the primary stress of a word diablo [di.'a.βlo] vs. violinista [bjo.li.'nis.ta]

Along morphological boundaries confiar [kon.fi.'ar] vs. caviar [ka.'βjar]

review of the literature

Cabré & Prieto (2006) Word-initiality

Yes, but very weak Distance to stress

Yes, but very weak Morphological boundaries

Yes, and dependent upon the high vowel Syllable structure

No significant effect Peninsular Spanish-speakers

review of the literature

Research questions Is the production of exceptional hiatuses

1. …affected by word initiality?2. …affected by distance to stress?3. …affected by morpheme boundaries?4. …affected by syllable structure?5. …cross-dialectally similar between Peninsular and

Mexican-Spanish speakers?

review of the literature

Hypotheses1. …will be affected by word initiality.2. …will be affected by distance to stress.3. …will be affected by morpheme boundaries.4. …will not be affected by syllable structure.5. …will be cross-dialectally similar between

Peninsular and Mexican-Spanish speakers.

methodology

200 words 155 targeted linguistic forms (Cabré & Prieto)

Contain Unstressed High V + Mid / Low V No historical diphthongs [je] and [we]

45 distracters No diphthongs whatsoever

Varied by parameter1. Position

INITIAL MEDIAL FINALdiagonal variante historia

methodology

Varied by parameter (cont.)2. Distance to stress

STRESSED ADJACENT 2 SYLLABLEScliente cristianismo dualidad

3. MorphologyNONE SUFFIX COMPOUND VERBALsueco italiano semiexperto insinuar

4. Syllable structureSIMPLE COMPLEXpiano criollo

methodology

16 total participants Dialectal Group 1

Peninsular Spanish-speakers 8 participants (4 male, 4 female) Median age of 26.8

Dialectal Group 2 Mexican Spanish-speakers 8 participants (5 male, 3 female) Median age of 28.0

methodology

Testing procedure One-on-one Computer based Once aloud Not timed

Scoring procedure Praat

results: position

NON-INITIAL

INITIAL

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

18.4%

25.0%

24.5%

35.6%

21.5%

30.3%

AllPeninsularMexican

results: position

FINAL

MEDIAL

INITIAL

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

8.3%

29.6%

25.0%

14.4%

35.7%

35.6%

11.3%

32.7%

30.3%

AllPeninsularMexican

NO

N-IN

ITIA

L

results: position

FINAL

MEDIAL

INITIAL

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

8.3%

29.6%

25.0%

14.4%

35.7%

35.6%

11.3%

32.7%

30.3%

AllPeninsularMexican

NO

N-IN

ITIA

L

results: position

FINAL

MEDIAL

INITIAL

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

8.3%

29.6%

25.0%

14.4%

35.7%

35.6%

11.3%

32.7%

30.3%

AllPeninsularMexican

NO

N-IN

ITIA

L

results: stress

2 SYLLABLES

ADJACENT

STRESSED

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

47.5%

27.4%

14.0%

45.0%

40.9%

19.4%

46.3%

34.1%

16.7%

AllPeninsularMexican

results: morphology

VERBAL

COMPOUND

SUFFIX

NONE

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

18.4%

87.5%

9.7%

17.2%

28.9%

81.3%

15.9%

26.9%

23.7%

84.4%

12.8%

22.0%

AllPeninsularMexican

results: structure

COMPLEX

SIMPLE

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

20.2%

20.7%

17.9%

29.9%

19.0%

25.3%

AllPeninsularMexican

results

POSITION STRESS MORPHOLOGY STRUCTURE

Initial 52 Stressed 93 None 80 Simple onset 134

Medial 49 Syllable adjacent 52 Suffix 44 Complex onset 21

Final 54 Two syllables 10 Compound 12

Verbal 19

Target form distribution

results

POSITION STRESS MORPHOLOGY STRUCTURE

Initial 52 Stressed 93 None 80 Simple onset 134

Medial 49 Syllable adjacent 52 Suffix 44 Complex onset 21

Final 54 Two syllables 10 Compound 12

Verbal 19

Target form distribution

results: stress revisited

2 SYLLABLES (n=10)

ADJACENT (n=52)

STRESSED (n=93)

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

47.5%

27.4%

14.0%

45.0%

40.9%

19.4%

46.3%

34.1%

16.7%

AllPeninsularMexican

results: structure revisited

COMPLEX (n=21)

SIMPLE (n=134)

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

20.2%

20.7%

17.9%

29.9%

19.0%

25.3%

AllPeninsularMexican

results: statistical analysis

Still a work in progress 155 words × 4 parameters × 2 to 4 variables = 29 different “word types”

Group 1: [initial, stressed, no morph, simple onset] Group 2: [initial, stressed, no morph, complex onset]

Group sizes vary Some parameters go hand-in-hand

[compound] = [medial]

discussion: hypotheses revisited

1. Word-initiality Yes, hiatuses favored in word-initial position

2. Distance to stress× No, hiatuses favored further from stress (?)

3. Morphology Yes, hiatuses favored in compounds

4. Syllable structure No, hiatuses are not favored in simple nor complex onsets (?)

5. Cross-dialectal similarity Yes, the patterns are consistent, albeit to a lesser extent in

Mexican Spanish

discussion

OT Analysis Cabré & Prieto (2006)

Language change (?) “conservative” speakers vs. “innovative” speakers

Dialects Exceptional hiatuses are preferred by Peninsular

Spanish-speakers Patterns of what causes exceptional hiatuses are

consistent

limits and future research

Numbers Target form distribution Participants

Language change More varied participants More dialects

gracias ['gra.sjas]BRYAN KORONKIEWICZUniversity of Illinois at Chicagobkoron2@uic.edu

MARCH 19, 2010 UIC Talks in Linguistics