Chapter published in:
Amazonian Spanish: Language Contact and Evolution
Edited by Stephen Fafulas
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 23] 2020
► pp. 223–258

Chapter 9
Phonological processes in flux

Variation in palatal lateral production in the Ecuadorian Amazon

| University of Alabama

In this study, we examine the production of the palatal lateral in Spanish, represented orthographically as <ll>, as produced by bilinguals in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The purpose of this study is first to observe what changes may have taken place in the acoustic production of palatal /ʎ/ by Quichua-Spanish speakers in comparison to related segments /l/ and /ʝ/ which may be due to indigenous language contact, and second to determine if extralinguistic influences may have contributed to this change (e.g., differences in gender). While males appear to maintain a distinct palatal lateral and females demonstrate a move towards delateralization, both genders demonstrate cases of depalatalization due to allophony, as in their native language.

Keywords: Amazonian Spanish, Quichua bilinguals, Ecuador, palatal lateral, language contact
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
    • Language contact and sound change
    • Acoustic analysis of Spanish palatal lateral and related segments
  • Present study
    • Setting and participants
    • Materials and data elicitation
    • Data analysis
  • Results
    • Analysis of closure
    • Analysis of transition
    • Analysis of total duration
  • Findings summary and discussion
    • Summary
    • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 July 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.23.09oro
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