Chapter 5
The acento pujado in Yucatan Spanish
Prosodic rhythm and the search for the
yucateco accent
Previous research has indicated that the accent
of Yucatan Spanish (YS) differs from that of other dialects, in
particular standard Mexican Spanish from central Mexico. These
studies attribute the YS accent, described as halting/staccato
(pujado), to contact with Yucatec Maya,
suggesting that yucatecos speak Spanish with a
Mayan accent. This claim has never been addressed explicitly in the
literature, however. The present study applies several metrics of
prosodic rhythm (%V, Cdev & PVI) to spontaneous speech samples
from bilingual and monolingual yucatecos. Results
show a changing rhythm, with younger speakers moving away from more
traditional, possibly Maya-influenced patterns in apparent time.
Connections between rhythm and segmental features of YS are
discussed, along with possible social implications.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Accent and rhythm in (Yucatan) Spanish
- 2.1YS Intonation
- 2.2Prosodic rhythm
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Results
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusions
-
Note
-
References
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