Christoph Gabriel

PROSODIC TRANSFER IN LEARNER AND CONTACT VARIETIES

A remarkable example of Spanish-Italian contact is the Spanish variety spoken in Buenos Aires (Porteno), which is said to be prosodically “Italianized” due to migration-induced contact. The change in Porteno prosody has been interpreted as a result of transfer from the first language (L1) that occurred when Italian immigrants learned Spanish as a second language (L2; McMahon, 2004 ). This article aims to examine if and to what extent prosodic features that are typical of Italian show up in Porteno and in L2 Castilian Spanish produced by Italian native speakers. Specifically, we investigated speech rhythm and the realization of yes-no questions in Porteno and L2 Castilian Spanish in comparison to Italian and L1 Castilian Spanish. We hypothesized that Italian, Porteno, and L2 Castilian Spanish would exhibit similar rhythm patterns, showing high values for the percentage of vocalic material, the variation coefficient of vocalic intervals, and the speech-rate-normalized pairwise variability index for vowels as well as high frequencies of rising prenuclear accents, with the peak located at the end of the syllable (L+H*) and falling final contours in yes-no questions, in contrast to Castilian Spanish. The results confirm our predictions for speech rhythm but not entirely for the intonation of yes-no questions.

Manual of Grammatical Interfaces in Romance

In this chapter we offer an overview of phenomena at the phoneticsphonology interface in the Romance languages. Processes affecting consonants and vowels are studied separately. Parallels with historical sound changes in the same or in another language are mentioned when relevant.

Speaker Age Effects on Prosodic Patterns in Bulgarian

We investigated prosodic variability attributable to age in Standard Bulgarian. In readings of The North Wind and the Sun, recorded by two groups of six female speakers aged between 19-23 and 79-88 years, we found significant differences in pitch span, minimum F0, syllable, intonation phrase and pause duration. The older speakers made more pauses, which were also of longer duration. They also realized longer syllables and intonation phrases than young speakers. Both groups used the same inventory of pitch accents and boundary tones, but there were significant differences in the frequency counts of some of the tones: young speakers used pre-nuclear rises with a post-tonic high target, while older speakers preferred rises with a high target within the stressed syllable; the nuclear pitch accent used most frequently by the young speakers was L*, whereas the one preferred by the elderly speakers was L+H*; younger speakers used more phrase accents (especially H-), while older speakers preferred boundary tones (H-% and L-%) and “level” (H-L% and HL-) pitch curves. Our findings suggest that the study of tonal repertoires and frequencies of use could offer interesting insights into age-related differences between speakers.

Rhythmic Properties of a Contact Variety: Comparing Read and Semi-spontaneous Speech in Argentinean Porteño Spanish

This chapter investigates the speech rhythm of Porteno, the variety of Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires, which is said to be influenced by Italian due to massive streams of immigration from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Given that migration-induced language contact is necessarily linked to the learning of a foreign language by the immigrant population, it has been argued that the typical shape of Porteno prosody is the result of prosodic transfer from L1 Italian to L2 Spanish (McMahon 2004). On the basis of analysis of scripted data, it was shown in earlier work Porteno and L2 Castilian Spanish, produced by Italian natives, pattern with Italian in displaying higher proportion of vocalic material in the speech signal and greater variability of vocalic intervals, in contrast to L1 Castilian Spanish. The goal of the present chapter is to corroborate these findings analyzing semi-spontaneous speech. We hypothesize that both Porteno and L2 Castilian Spanish pattern with Italian with respect to their rhythmic shape in displaying a greater variability of vocalic intervals (VarcoV, VnPVI) and a higher proportion of vocalic material (% V) than native Castilian Spanish. The analyses performed on semi-spontaneous data from the four varieties confirm our expectations, thus speaking in favour of McMahon’s transfer hypothesis. Furthermore, we show that the rhythmic differences among Porteno, Italian and L2 Castilian Spanish on the one hand and L1 Castilian Spanish on the other are most adequately captured by the % V/VnPVI plane.