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Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain
Edited by Rajiv Rao
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 28] 2020
► pp. 383–420

Chapter 14
Spanish phonology in contact with Catalan

On implementations of gradience and discreteness in the study of sociolinguistic variation of laterals

 | University of California, Berkeley
This study investigates sociophonetic variation in the production of the alveolar lateral /l/ in Catalan and Spanish, the velarization of which is considered the hallmark feature of Catalonian Spanish (Arnal, 2011; Casanovas Català, 1995; Hickey, 2012). Using an innovative combination of both gradient and categorical analyses to evaluate lateral production in Spanish and Catalan elicited from Catalan-Spanish bilinguals and Madrid monolinguals stratified by gender and exposure/usage of Catalan, we assess the degree to which lateral velarization pervades this contact setting. In so doing, we demonstrate that lateral velarization and the inventory of lateral categories in these languages are best approached using gradient and relative hierarchies of lateral darkness rather than discrete applications of intrinsically light [l] or dark [ɫ].
Keywords: lateral velarization, Spanish-Catalan contact, sociophonetics, dark and light /l/, bilingualism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Assessments of lateral production in Spanish, Catalan, and other languages
    • 2.1Lateral production in (monolingual) Spanish
    • 2.2Lateral production in Catalan
    • 2.3On the classifications and criteria for distinguishing light and dark laterals
    • 2.4Acoustic metrics for assessing gradient velarization and discrete lateral allophones
  • 3.Research questions and hypotheses concerning CCS lateral production
  • 4.Experimental methodology
    • 4.1Linguistic factors
    • 4.2Social factors and subject population
    • 4.3Test instruments
    • 4.4Data collection methods
  • 5.Data analysis methods and results
    • 5.1Acoustic analysis
    • 5.2Total counts of collected lateral production data
    • 5.3Results – overall distribution of lateral production by language and profile group
    • 5.4Results – linguistic and social factors conditioning CCS and Catalan lateral velarization
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Lateral velarization in CCS, Catalan, and monolingual Spanish
    • 6.2Lateral inventories and considerations for the classification of light and dark laterals
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.28.14dav
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