Correcting the record on Dominican [s]-hypercorrection

Theoretical linguistic treatments of Dominican [s]-hypercorrection all assume the hypotheses, advanced by Terrell (1986), that lexical forms in popular Dominican Spanish no longer contain any trace of coda or final /s/ and, thus, speakers randomly insert them into syllable- and word-final position (Terrell 1986; Núñez-Cedeño 1988, 1989, 1994; Harris 2002; Bradley 2006; Vaux 2001, 2002). We demonstrate that Terrell’s premises ensue from an inadequate description of Dominican [s]-insertion and, as a consequence, phonological theories based on them cannot account for the range of actual, as opposed to hypothesized, exemplars that occur in Dominican speech. Using natural data, we argue that [s]-hypercorrection is inaccurately described as a rule that targets the syllable coda and is instead much more complex.

Published online: 25 November 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.315.01bul