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Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 11:5 (2021) ► pp.700–738

Type of early bilingualism effect on the delateralization of /ʎ/ in Basque and Spanish

ORCID logo | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The contrast between /ʎ/ and /ʝ/ has been lost in most Spanish varieties. This merger (yeísmo) has also been claimed to have spread to Basque. I study the palatal merger in Azpeitia Basque and Spanish, where simultaneous (2L1 Basque, Spanish) and early-sequential (L1 Basque, L2 Spanish) groups were tested in both languages. Comparing the two bilingual groups, this study found that, as a group, early-sequential bilinguals do not merge the phonemes in either of the two languages. However, while simultaneous bilinguals maintain the distinction in Basque, they tend to merge the phonemes in Spanish. Inter-speaker variation is found within each group and individual reports do not confirm global results. This study has also encountered different types of speakers as far as the palatal merger is concerned in Basque and Spanish: (1) non-mergers in any of the languages, (2) mergers in both languages, (3) mergers only in Spanish, and (4) mergers only in Basque.

Keywords: phoneme merger, yeísmo, palatals, bilingualism type, Basque and Spanish in contact
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Theoretical framework
    • 2.2A historical perspective: Origin of phonemes and merging
    • 2.3Presence of yeísmo in the Spanish-speaking world
    • 2.4Presence of the palatal merger in Basque
    • 2.5Procedures to study the palatal merger acoustically
    • 2.6Phonotactic constraints of the palatal lateral and palatal fricative in Spanish and Basque
    • 2.7Research questions and hypotheses
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Sampling
    • 3.2Procedure
    • 3.3Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Spanish
    • 4.2Basque
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.19082.ber
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