the phonetics of the spanish "s" sound

7/29/2019 The phonetics of the spanish "S" sound

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The Vagaries of the Spanish "S"

Author(s): Antonio H. ObaidReviewed work(s):Source: Hispania, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Mar., 1973), pp. 60-67Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and PortugueseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/339038 .Accessed: 17/10/2012 17:58

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THE VAGARIES OF THE SPANISH "S"ANTONIO H. OBAIDCarleton College

T HERE IS THE STORYof the nativeSpanish teacher explaining to hisclass how to form the plural of nouns andadjectives. "It is very simple," he said,"just add an s. For example: el f6foro >lo f6foro" (el f6sforo > los f6sforos). Itreminds me of my school teacherin Chile,warning us: "no se coman lah ese" ('nose coman Laseses').I think that s is the most unpredictable,elusive, shifting, erratic and troublesomesound in the Spanish language. Severalstudies on Spanish phonology and dialectstouch on this subject, so I shall recapitu-late pertinent information which is al-ready known, but I also propose to add,to elaborate, to correct, to disagree, andto theorize based on my own findings andobservations.1There is a Castilian s, which is a voice-less, concave, apicoalveolar fricative: thetip of the tongue turned upward forms anarrow opening against the alveoli of theupper incisors. It resembles a faint / S /and is found throughout much of thenorthern half of Spain. And there is aconvex, dorsal, dento-alveolarvoiceless fri-cative s, found in the southern half, main-ly in the Audalusian region. This "south-ern" s has two varieties: one in whichthe tip of the tongue is lowered until itleans against the inner side of the lowerincisors: it is the s of Malaga, Seville andCddiz; the other, less dorsal and less con-vex, is obtained by forming a narrowopening against the upper teeth and alveo-li with the predorsal and ridge of thetongue. It is the s of Granada, Huelva,Cordova, Jad4nnd Almeria.2The Latin American s resembles the"southern"s (Andalusian type), althoughslight variations can be noticed within acountry or from one country to the other.3

Navarro Tomas says that "la s apical detipo castellano, con variantes tambitn, seusa, seguin las pocas noticias que sobreesto tenemos, en parte de M6jico, de An-tillas y del Peru."4 I have also heard itrathercurrentlyin Bogoti.These are variations of the phoneme ofs that have gained respectable acceptancein the exclusive club of the "habla culta,"and except for the readily noticeable dif-ference between the "Castilian" and theAndalusian" s's their regional variationsare not so pronounced as to constitute amajor problem to understanding spokenSpanish. But that is not the case with theother variants, which for some strangereasons have been denied membership insuch an elite club. I dare say that it isprecisely in these more "democratic"waysof speech that the true sounds of s arereally to be found. I have examineddozens of textbooks-including some ofthe finest and most popular-which ex-plain the Spanish pronunciation, and Ihave yet to find one that goes much be-yond the classic distinction between theso-called Castilian and Latin Americanpronunciation, by which is commonlymeant that in Spain they differentiatebe-tween the sound of s /s/ on one hand andthe sound of z/o/ or c + e, i on theother, while in Latin America they do not

We Spanish professorsmay have beenconditioned to equate the classroom lan-guage to the living language, perhapsthrough the influence of the SpanishAcademy and renowned scholars who ad-vise us to use only the "lengua culta" andto look at other forms of speech as in-ferior.5Navarro Tomas, who is regarded asone of the most authoritativeand respect-ed Spanish phonologists, explains what is60


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THE VAGARIESFTHESPANISH"S" 61meant by a correct Spanish pronuncia-tion: "Sefiilase como norma general debuena pronunciaci6n la que se usa cor-rientemente en Castilla en las conversa-ciones de las personas ilustradas, por serla que mas se aproximaa la escritura;suuso, sin embargo,no se reduce a esta solaregi6n, sino que, recomendadapor las per-sonas doctas, difundida por las escuelas ycultivada artisticamente en la escena, enla tribuna y en la citedra, se extiendemis o menos por las demis regiones delengua espafiola . . . Esta pronunciaci6n,pues, castellana sin vulgarismo,y culta sinafectaci6n, estudiada especialmente en elambiente universitario madrilefio, es laque el presente libro pretende describir"(Manual, p.8). Of course he admits thatthere are considerable differences in pro-nunciation between "el habla popular deCastilla y la lengua culta espaiiola"(p.7),

ejemplos formaculta semicultarecado Fqkido rekAidosoldado sQ9ldido sq9didtaabogado abogido aboga-dI wonder where, in this very aristocraticclassification, would such expressions asthese fit in: lahkda, for 'las casas', aogdu,for 'abogado', to say nothing about muchmore colorful ones, like: yoldvia for 'Yu-goslavia','/3 30/. for 'diario', Itut6ra?for'Ctieneusted hora?' peese uht" for 'esp6r-ese Vd.', or nwa'nwamwd for 'nos vamosa mojar'.

If the "lengua culta" demands suchrigorousand high standardsof pronuncia-tion, then perhaps no more than four orfive in a hundred would qualify as mem-bers.As an ideal form of speech to strive for,the "habla culta" is very commendable,tobe sure, although I am exceedingly du-bious that it could ever be attained but byvery few. Meanwhile the hard fact re-mains that those other modes of pronun-ciation which are somewhat disdainfullytermed "habla popular," or "vulgar" or

and like Bello-Cuervo for practical rea-sons, and the Spanish Academy for ety-mological considerations, Navarro Tomisseems to equate "espafiol culto" with"lengua literaria"(p.5). Getting down tospecifics, and after listing other "de-fects" of the pronunciation of s he says:"Rechizase tambidn como vulgarismo lapronunciaci6n de la s final como simpleaspiraci6n, y asimismo su eliminaci6n to-tal en determinadascircunstancias,hechoscorrientes,segtin es sabido, en el lenguajepopular de varias regiones de Espafia yAmerica: pdhtv, por pasta-pdatv; ehpisC,por espeso-espesC, ehtdimO,por estamos-egtdmos; lah kdsv, por las casas-laskasvs"(p. 110. Emphasis is mine).Here are a few examples of the stand-ards of classification used by NavarroTomas (p. 102):

familiar vulgar riisticaO k f = f q k a . . f q k g a

slkdio s9QIdo sJdkabogic abogao abogiu"riistica" or something worse, are thespoken language, the living, everydaylan-guage, and we professors of Spanishshould not brush them aside so cavalier-ly. On the contrary,not only do we needto recognize their existence but to make aconscious effort to explain them to ourstudents. Failure to do so will most likelycontinue to result in their inability to un-derstand the average native Spanishspeaker, however good they may have be-come in the other skills.The use of tape recordings,with mas-ter voices whose dictions are invariablyimpeccable, exquisitely pure, further com-pounds the problem by widening the gapbetween the "habla literaria" and whatthe student will likely hear in a Spanish-speaking country.The desire to liken the spoken to theliterary language has led us to the naivebelief that Spanish sounds very much as


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62 ANTONIO H. OBAID Hispania 56 (March 1973)it is written. Yet the disparitybetweenthe two has become so great that thequestion may arise again-howeveraca-demic-whether Spanishshould be writ-ten as it is spoken,or whetherit shouldbe spokenas it is written.Neither solu-tion, of course, s very likely.The letters that appearmostfrequentlyin any Spanishwrittentext are a, e, oand s respectively.These four symbolsrepresent40% of the total phoneticma-terialin an average ext: a with 13%, ewith 11.75%o with 8.9% and s with8.5%.If to s we add the seseo(z, c + e,i = /s/) of largeportionsof Andaluciaand Hispano-America, his percentageshouldrise aboveo, to 10.53%.Forgoodmeasurewe couldthrowx in, which alsotends to sound as s before anothercon-sonant.6If therewere a closerrelationbetweenthe literary and the spoken language,Spanish should be considereda highlysibilant ongue,and, to be sure,somecon-sider it so. Others, with equally goodreasons,deny that it is. "Es ciertoque lafrecuenciade la s esti contrarrestadangeneralporla debilitaci6n ue este sonidoexperimentaen posici6nfinal de silaba,debilitaci6nque, como es sabido,en lasregionesde seseo, mAsque en las quedistinguena z, lega en el hablacorrientehasta la simple aspiraci6n"(NavarroTomais,Fonologia, . 26).If s wereconsistently ronounceds anaspirateh at the end of syllablesandwords,as it is normallydone throughoutHispano-America,he frequencyof thesound/s/ woulddropabout53% n coun-tries where the seseo prevails.In Spain,in thoseplaceswherethey distinguishbe-tween /s/ and /0/, the sound/s/ woulddrop close to 70%if the aspiration f swere as consistentas in Latin America.We know that that is not the case, butnor shouldwe concludethat it is regular-ly preserved s /s/.7 An aspirateh, evenin Madrid, is very common in those posi-

tions also; I would venture to say thatthis is so no less than 50% of the time.The "cultured" Spanish s has a rela-

tively wide range of variations accordingto their points of articulation, both inSpain and in Latin America, but essen-tially it is a short and soft sound. Yet thephoneme is renderedby an impressivear-ray of allophones,some of which are quitefar removed from /s/, thereby greatlycomplicating its study and understandingby foreign students trying to learn Span-ish. We have already listed aspirate h asthe most frequent of them all. S also be-comes voiced /z/ before another voicedconsonant: azno < 'asno', mizmo < 'mis-mo'. It may be assimilated completely tothe following consonant: f6foro for 'f6s-foro', mimmo for 'mismo', difrazarse for'disfrazarse',or the assimilation may onlybe partial, resulting in sounds that neith-er resemble /s/ nor the consonant follow-ing, except in a very vague sort of way:the most common is the change of /s/into /r/ before a voiced consonant, espe-cialy d: lordomingos for 'los domingos',alard6 for 'a las dos'. It can produce abackward assimilation by attracting theimmediately following voiced consonantto its own voicelessness, and then fusewith it: 'resbalar' > resfalar > refalar;'rasgar' > rajar;or it can cause the lossof the entire syllable that contains it, espe-cially at the beginning of a breath group:tabidn < 'esta"bien', taluego < 'hastaluego', talaihquidrdaeh la hila de Alfon-so Trde < 'esta, a la izquierda, es la salade Alfonso XIIP (actually heard inMadrid).In large portions of Andalucia and Ex-tremadura, where ceceo prevails, the s,as it is well known, is an interdentalvoiceless fricative, like the z or c + e, iin Castile.

Phonologists have repeatedly called at-tention to practices involving the use ofceceo and seseo, but I have not run acrossanyone who discusses what I shall call,


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THE VAGARIESOF THE SPANISH "S" 63for lack of a better word, ceseo, or seceo,whichever you prefer. It is an absolutelychaotic way of mixing up the sounds of/s/ and /0/ for any s or z or c + e, i,in whichever form it strikes the fancy ofthe speaker first. In talking to a workerin Torremolinos who had been born inZaragozabut lived most of his life aroundMalaga, I heard him use the name of hishometown no less than half a dozen timesin the space of a few minutes, and I re-member how delighted I was because henever said it the same way twice in suc-cession. It was: oaragoOa, and Saragooa,and earagosa and Saragosa. The touristguide from Toledo showing us the Mo-numento a los Caidos referredto it some-times as la Basilica and sometimes as laBaeilica. Here are typical examples ofcommon renderingsof s, z or c + e, i inAndalucia: it can be corao6n as well ascorasdn; it can be Oiudd(d) or siudd(d);it can be las coOas or laOcooah or lah-cosa, etc.Aurelio M. Espinosa (padre) speaks ofan s in New Mexican Spanish whichwhen followed by /k/ in an intervocalicgroup, especially after a, sometimeschanges its alveolar articulation to a pala-tal ' /J/: 'mascar' > ma?kar; cascara'>kdskara,'mosca' > molka.Canfield points out that "En la sierraecuatoriana, salvo en el extremo norte(Tulcin), se oye un fen6meno 'inico, porlo visto, en America. La s se manifiestacon sonoridad en fin de palabraante vocalen la pr6xima, siendo tambidn sonora enlas condiciones 'normales' castellanas"(La pronunciacidn,p. 81). This phenom-enon is not unique to the Ecuatoriansier-ra; I have heard it repeatedly in Monter-rey (Mexico), not only at the end of theword before a following vowel, mazalld< 'mis alld', but also when s is in an,ab-solute final position: 'triigame unos tacos'> trdigamiunoztdcoz.What is even morestartling in Monterrey is the deliberateand prolonged voicing of s even when

the next word begins by a voicelesssound: mazkafMor 'mis cafW'.t is need-less to say that s is also emphaticallyvoiced before anothervoiced consonant:mizzrmoor 'mismo'.I have also heardthis strong and dragged out /zz/ inGuadalajara (Mexico), Mexico City,and San Jos6(CostaRica), althoughthecasesarerare n the latterthreecities.It should be understoodhat even inthose places where s has a special pro-nunciationat times, like /, / in NewMexico,a long emphatic zz/ in partsofMexicoandCostaRica, "arrastrada"sss/as in Guatemala,Quito and La Paz, as-pirates /h/-the most commonallophone-coexists with them.The sameholdstruefor thoseplaceswheres is frequentlypro-nouncedat the end of syllables ndwords,placeslike Madrid,Bogotai,BuenosAires,MexicoCity and Lima.(BogotAhasearn-ed a reputation f speakingSpanishwell,becausethere they give the illusion thatthey pronouncethe s's, which they do* . . half of the time! Example: 'estascosasya no se hacen, ni son necesarias'> estas cosah ya no se ahen, ni sonneesarias).The most interestingphonological he-nomenon akingplacein the Spanish an-guagetoday, n my opinion, s the weak-ening to an aspirateh and the frequentloss of the sound /s/ (or its allophone/h/) in intervocalic ositions.To be sure,it has not gone unnoticed,but I do notthinkit hasreceived he attentiont trulydeserves.Neither NavarroTomis in hisManual de pronunciacion spahiolanorCanfield n his Pronunciaci6nel espafiolen America ays anythingaboutit.Luis F16rezmakesa scantreference othis phenomenonn La pronunciaci6nelespaAol n Bogotd Bogota,1951),p. 193:"En pronunciaci6n aipiday descuidadase oyen casos de s intervocdlicaspirada:nohotros,no hehior,i heiior,una hehiora.." In his Apuntaciones riticassobreel lenguaje bogotano (Bogota, 1939) R. J.


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64 ANTONIO H. OBAID Hispania 56 (March 1973)Cuervo disposesof the subject in one sen-tence: "Rara vez alcanza entre nosotrosesta afecci6n /s > h/ a la s intervocal:en algunas partes lHamanmahato a lo que,en otras masato" (p. 576). Neither Cuer-vo nor F16rez mentions the existence ofthis phenomenon in any other Hispano-American country, as they usually do withother practices when such is the case.Aurelio M. Espinosa (padre) says that"Ante consonante velar, en posici6n inter-vocalica o cuando es inicial de grupo f6ni-co, la s puede convertirse corrientementeen la x nuevomejicana: dice > dihe, ex-aminar esaminar o ehaminar, pasar >pahar" (Estudios, p. 186).9In a study of the preservation:f voiceds and z in Ciceres, Salamanca and sur-rounding regions Espinosa (hijo) tells us:"dentro de palabra, o en posici6n inicialabsoluta, en cambio, la aspiraci6nde s esun fen6meno mucho mais raro. Parecetener gran extensi6n en los dialectos anda-luces. En los hispanoamericanos,con ex-cepci6n del chileno y del nuevomejicano,la reducci6n de la s inicial aparece s6loesporidicamente".10The hesitations, denials, uncertainties,cautions and disagreements inherent inthe statements of these distinguishedscholars are understandable at least fortwo reasons: the first is -the scarcity ofavailable studies, especially those of acomprehensive nature, on which to basetheir affirmationsat the time when theywere made. The second, I am convinced,is that we are dealing with a recent phe-nomenon. Although its sporadic and lo-calized existence was registered long ago,the range and speed at which it is travel-ing is relatively new. I have been able tonotice its extraordinarily rapid spreadduring my periodic travels throughoutSpain and Latin America these last fif-teen years. The practice is making deepinroads into all social classes and, al-though not consistently, it does alternateregularly with the "formas cultas." It is

no longer merely a regional phenomenon,nor is it strictly sporadic, nor peculiar torustic speech: it is a movement of majorproportions,comparableonly to yeismo inmagnitude, and perhaps even more im-portant if for no other reason but becauseyeismo is-Navarro Tomais notwithstand-ing-in fact already very firmly establish-ed in the urbancenters.11

No comprehensive studies have beenmade, to my knowledge, of this aspirationand even total loss of the phoneme /s/in intervocalic position, either for Spainor for Hispanoamerica.Yet I have heardit very frequently in all the major citiesof Spain: Madrid, Barcelona,Seville, Bil-bao, Santander, Valencia, Santiago deCompostela, Valladolid, Milaga, Zarago-za, Le6n, Granada,Cordova,etc., and notjust in the "habla popular" but even inthe topmost layers of the "gente culta":university professors and students, law-yers, doctors, scientists, radio and TV an-nouncers and commentators, ndustrial ex-ecutives, government officials, includingone of Franco's Cabinet members duringa formal speech. As for Spanish America,I have heard it used by people of allsocial classes, including the Dean of theLaw School at the University of Lima(Perui), everywhere, except Argentina,Bolivia and Uruguay.12If there ever was anything to the theorythat the aspiration of s operates only onthe Castilian s but not on the s "seseada"of z, ce, ci, it is no longer true today: nodistinctive effort is made to aspirate thes or to drop it, whatever its origin, s, ce,ci, or z, either in Latin America or inAndalucia, and frequently in the rest ofSpain: parehe < 'parece', nehesario ehac-to; 'exigente' > esigente > ehigenteeigente.13 In regions of Spain which dis-tinguish s from ce, ci or z, this phenome-


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THE VAGARIESOF THE SPANISH "S" 65non also occurs, because not only s but z/ e / undergoes the same changes: meparehe or me paree < 'me parece', nehe-sito or neesito < 'necesito', corahdn Yuigohldvia> Yr(ohldvia> Yzioldvia> Ywoldvia > Yolaivia.'Nos vamos a mojar' > n3hvadmohamo-jdr ndhvdmwamod' navvdmwamwd >nadmwamwd > nwa'mwamwa.'tTiene usted hora?'> tidneneuhtedra>


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66 ANTONIO H. OBAID Hispania 56 (March 1978)tidniuhtidra > tiuht6ra > tizitra > tu-tora? (These are expressionsI have actu-ally heard).

The phonological material in thesephrases has been reduced by 30%, 40%and 55%, respectively! Little wonder ifthe American student with two or eventhree years of Spanish cannot make muchsense out of what he is hearing. Yet thesechanges are in perfect keeping with thepattern and laws of changes that havebeen operating on Spanish throughout itsentire history. They would not be difficult

to explain to our students at the elemen-tary and intermediate levels, and weshould do so as an integral part of theircourses. Given this awareness they wouldbe in a much better position to under-stand what is missing or what haschanged, rather than be stupified by astring of sounds which have a very vagueresemblance to what they would looklike in the proper written form.Phonologists are falling behind thesechanges, but we professors are trailingway behind the phonologists.a a en padrea a en male a en oradorb b en tumbab b en habab b en dial. esbeltoe ch en mucho0 z en mozod d en conded d en ruedad d en abogado4 d en virtude e en cante'q e en perroa e en amenazaf fen ficilg g en mangag g en rogari i en pidej i en gentil

I i en peinei ien raipidoj i en nietok c en casa1 I en lunaI 1 en a/zari I en faldal 11en castillom in en amarmr n en confuso

i en conmovern n en manon in en onza9 n en monteq n en cincon 7 en ai7oSoo en cantdo9 o en amoro o en adorarp p en padre

r r en horaI r en colorf rr en carros s en paso? s en hastat t en tomart t en hazte acaiu u en puroy u en culpau u en causau it en titiulow hu en hutesox j enjamaisy y en mayo9 y en c6nyugez s en rasgarz z en juzgara vocal nasali vocal acentuadaa: vocal larga

NOTES1Thematerialsndinformation sedfor thisstudy have been gatheredduring two extendedstays in Spain for a total of a year and fourmonths (1953-54 and 1969), and two sabbati-cals in Latin America for about ten months(1958, 1964). I have been all over Spain andall over Latin America except Nicaragua, ElSalvador, the Dominican Republic and Para-guay, but I have heard modes of speech ofpeople from these countries.2R. Menendez Pidal, Manual de gramdtica

histdricaespafiola(Madrid: Espasa-Calpe,S.A.,phonetic equivalents of letters in question are1944), pp. 103-04. Except in direct quotations,

given in InternationalPhonetic Alphabet sym-bols in bracketsthroughoutmy work. For prac-tical considerations,when within a word orphrase,IPA symbolsare used for the sounds inquestion and the rest is simply renderedas theword is or might be written in Spanish.3See D. Lincoln Canfield, La pronunciacidndel espahol en Amdrica (BogotA, 1962, pp. 79-80). See also Luis F16rez, La pronunciacicn delespa-holen Bogotd (BogotA, 1951), pp. 183-89.4T. Navarro TomAs, Manual de pronuncia-ci6n espaiola (Madrid, 1932), p. 107.sThe Spanish Academy says that "Incurrenen barbarismo los que acentian y pronuncianmal las palabras" Gramdtica de la lengua espafi-ola (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe,S.A., 1931), p.


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THE VAGARIESOF THE SPANISH "S" 67437. It also "condena el abuso de los que con-vierten x > s con el cual, sin necesidad niutilidad, se infringe la ley etimol6gica,se privaa la lengua de armoniosoy grato sonido, des-virtuandolay afeminandola,y se da ocasi6n aque se confundan palabrasdistintas, como losverbos expiar y espiarque significancosas muydiversas" Ibid., p. 478).For FedericoHansen "la s final y la s com-binada con consonantes se convierten en ellenguaje vulgar a menudo en h." Gramdticahistdrica de la lengua castellana (Buenos Aires:Editorial"El Ateneo," 1945), p. 66. (Emphasismine). See also A. Bello and R. J. Cuervo,Gramdtica castellana (Paris, R. Roger y F.Chernoviz, Editores), p. 1.6See T. Navarro Tomis, Fonologia espaniola(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1946),pp. 17-19.

7See Navarro TomAs, "Vulgarismosen elhabla madrilefia,"Hispania, 50 (Sept., 1967),544-45. Surprisedand skepticalfirst, the authorends up by accepting rather grudgingly LuisFl6rez's findings of creeping "vulgarismos,"n-cluding the aspiratoinof s, which have becomeof common use by "la gente culta" of Madrid.See also Eloy L. Placer, "So, You Speak RealCastilian."Hispania, 46 (Dec. 1963), 780.8AurelioM. Espinosa(padre), Estudiossobreel espafiol de Nuevo Mdjico, (Traducci6n yReelaboraci6ncon Notas de A. Alonso y A.Rosenblat, con Nueve Estudios Complementar-ios sobre) Problemas de dialectologia hispano-americanapor A. Alonso, (Buenos Aires, 1930),p. 181.9Amado Alonso takes issue with this state-ment of Espinosa's:"No hay que dejarse des-pistar por el "corrientemente" e Espinosa, nipor el 6nfasis de Lenz al consignarel hecho:en Chile y en Nuevo Mejico este fen6meno esesporidico tambi6n . . . Sin embargo, quizA enesas dos regiones sea algo mis frecuente queen el resto de Am&rica,asf como en ciertasregiones andaluzas y en Extremaduraparece

que es mas frecuenteque en el restode Espafia"Amado Alonso, Estudios lingiiisticos: Temashispanoamericanos (Madrid: Editorial Gredos,S.A., 1967), pp. 286-87.0oAurelioM. Espinosa (hijo), "La Conser-vaci6n de la s y z sonoras en Ciceres y Sala-manca." Revista de filologia espaiiola, AnejoXIX (Madrid, 1935), pp. 237-38. R. Rodriguez-Castellanoand A. Palacio refer to the variouskinds of s to be found in Cabra (Andalucia)and neighboring municipalities,but none spe-cifically to s in an intervocalicposition. "Con-tribuci6n al estudio del dialecto andaluz: Elhabla de Cabra," in Revista de dialectologia yTradiciones populares, 4, (Madrid, 1948), p.404. See also pp. 410-12.I1See D. Lincoln Canfield, "Observacionessobre la pronunciaci6ndel castellano en Co-lombia." Hispania 45 (May 1962), p. 248.

Also his "Lima Castilian. The Pronunciationof Spanish in the City of the Kings,"RomanceNotes 2 (1960), 15. Also, Vladimir Honsa,"The Phonemic System of Argentinean Span-ish." Hispania, 48 (May 1965), 276. Cf. T.Navarro Tomis, "La pronunciaci6n en elALPI." Hispania, 47 (Dec. 1964), 719-20.12The weakening of s in initial and inter-vocalic positionsthat R. Lenz found among theChilian "huasos" s strictly a rustic pronuncia-tion. Although born and raised in Chile, I amnot aware of its practice even by the "roto,"the urban counterpartof "el huaso,"much lessby the more educated, except in a few setphrases: hepa Did < 'sepa Dios', no fior < 'nosefior'. See Rodolfo Lenz, "El Espafiol deChile," Biblioteca de dialectologia hispanoamer-icana, (Buenos Aires, 1940), pp. 90, 252, 254.Vladimir Honsa makes no reference to theaspirationor loss of s in intervocalicpositionin any of the six Argentinean dialects hestudied (op. cit., pp. 257-83).13Cf. Aurelio M. Espinosa (padre), op. cit.,pp. 186-87.

"BENITO PEREZ GALDOS: A SELECTEDANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY"Reprints of this bibliography by Hensley C. Woodbridge which appeared in theDecember 1970 number are available in limited quantity for $1 from the Secre-tary-Treasurer.

"AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON CARLOS FUENTES: 1949-69"This bibliography by Richard M. Reeve, published in the October 1970 issue,is the most comprehensive one ever compiled on the distinguished Mexicanwriter. It is available for $1.00 from the Secretary-Treasurer.

the phonetics of the spanish "s" sound

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