On the phonology and morphology of Andalusian Spanish: A phenomenon of vowel raising.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Varela-Garcia, Fabiola.

Contributor:

Sankoff, Gillian, advisor.

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Romance-language literature.

Linguistics.

0290.

0313.

Penn dissertations--Romance languages.

Romance languages--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Romance languages.

Romance languages--Penn dissertations.

0290.

0313.

Physical Description:

200 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 57-06A.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

The variable effects of final /-s/ in the nominal and the verbal morphology of Romance languages have been profusely addressed in the linguistic literature. Phonetically, lenition of final /-s/ results in greater articulatory efficiency in a number of Romance languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. Vowel lengthening, lowering and raising have been postulated as among the most frequent compensatory mechanisms after morpheme loss.

Intermediate stages, such as aspiration or deletion of /-s/ and vowel lengthening have been attested in French, Occitan and Spanish. Vocalization of /-s/ in monosyllabic words has been posited as the origin of the vocalic alternation that presently denotes plurality in Italian. However, vowel lowering and raising have only been reported in Spanish, although raising has also been postulated for Romanian, Occitan and Italian (Seklaoui 1989).

Fieldwork conducted in Estepa (Seville), Spain, provides the data for the present study. This dissertation is the first quantitative report within a Labovian variationist approach to document the sociolinguistic constraints affecting vowel raising in Andalusian Spanish. The analysis of linguistic factors is construed so as to reveal any possible compensatory effect that raising of /a/ may have following final /-s/ deletion in such noun phrases as las habichuelas rojas, 'the red beans'. In the same fashion, a functional effect is hypothesized for vowel raising in the verbal morphology. Effectively, the absence of a disambiguating subject pronoun and the deletion of /-s/ would leave /a/ raising as the only plural marker in instances like juegas mucho 'you -singular-play a lot'.

A multiplicate analysis selected syllable count as the most important factor constraining vowel raising. The monosyllabic determiner las remains almost categorically unraised, whereas nouns, adjectives and the disallowing pronoun ellas have the highest probability of vowel raising. The probabilistic analysis also selects final /-s/ as a significant factor for /a/ raising in Andalusian Spanish. However, although it points out the correlation between /a/ raising and /-s/ deletion, the analysis also attests the change of /a/ to (e) in the presence of an aspirated segment, as in (lah amigeh mieh) las amigas mias, 'my -female-friends'. Moreover, a serial effect reported for Puerto Rican Spanish (Poplack 1979) and Portuguese (Scherre & Naro, 1991, 1992, 1995) is also attested in this variety of Spanish, not only for /s/ lenition but also for vowel raising. Analysis at the syntagmatic level reveals the highest percentages of vowel raising in the case of a previous raised vowel within the noun phrase. In addition to this, statistical analysis depicts a functional interval for this vocalic change. In the absence of plural /-s/l, the greatest probability for vowel raising occurs in the adjectives, while the least likely to raise is the determiner las. Overall, this analysis of Andalusian Spanish reveals a structure that keeps feminine plural (eo) to the right of the head, and feminine plural (ah) to the left.

The probabilistic analysis also includes an interactive category of social factors comprised by social class, gender, age and education. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Notes:

Thesis (Ph.D. in Romance Languages) -- University of Pennsylvania, 1996.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-06, Section: A, page: 2462.

Supervisor: Gillian Sankoff.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.