Colliding vowel systems in Andean Spanish
Carryovers and emergent properties
John M. Lipski | Pennsylvania State University
The acquisition of the Spanish 5-vowel system by speakers of the 3-vowel language Quechua (/I/-/a/-/ʊ/) seldom results in accurate approximation to Spanish vowel spaces when learning takes place informally in post-adolescence. The present study offers data from a minimal immersion environment in northern Ecuador. In a context in which few cues point to the existence of mid-high vocalic oppositions in Spanish (e.g. no literacy, no corrective feedback, almost no viable minimal pairs), these speakers reliably distinguish only three Spanish vowels in production. These Quechua-dominant bilinguals have amorphous front and back vowel spaces considerably broader than those defining Quechua /I/ and /ʊ/, but with no bimodal clustering. Left relatively unfettered, the hybrid system may contribute to an understanding of the relationship between vowel inventory and vowel space topology.
Keywords: Andean Spanish, Spanish vowels, Quechua language, vowel spaces, second language acquisition
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Vowel spaces: inventories and topologies
- 1.2Spanish-Quechua bilingualism
- 2.Previous studies of Quechua-influenced Spanish vowel systems
- 3.Data collection
- 3.1The setting
- 3.2Participants
- 3.3Procedure
- 3.4Obtaining baseline data
- 4.Formant data extraction
- 4.1Procedure
- 4.2Normalization
- 4.3Exclusions
- 4.4Accommodations
- 5.Results
- 5.1Baseline Spanish and Quechua vowels
- 5.2Spanish vowel spaces of Quechua-dominant bilinguals
- 5.3Dispersion of vowel tokens
- 5.4Possible emergent height harmony
- 6.Discussion
- 6.1Under-differentiation of Spanish mid and high vowels
- 6.2Vowel (mis)identification as a function of F0 and F1
- 6.3For the future: further possible emergent traits
- 7.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
Published online: 01 May 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.5.1.04lip
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.5.1.04lip
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