Miquel Simonet

Dark and clear laterals in Catalan and Spanish: Interaction of phonetic categories in early bilinguals

Abstract The present study reports on an acoustic analysis of alveolar laterals in two contact languages (Catalan and Spanish) as produced by two groups of Catalan–Spanish bilinguals (Catalan-dominant and Spanish-dominant) residing on Majorca. Catalan alveolar laterals have been reported to be “darker” (i.e. velarized) than Spanish ones. Recent sociophonetic research has suggested that Catalan and Spanish are gradually converging in this phonetic feature due to intensive contact and that laterals are sociolinguistically salient in Majorca. This paper examines the potential interactions between the social-indexical role of laterals in Majorca and the abilities of bilinguals to maintain two separate acoustic distributions for laterals in their two languages. First, it is shown that bilinguals tend to transfer the phonetic features of the sound categories of their native language to their non-native one even after having had early and extensive exposure to native input in their non-dominant language. Second, it is shown that while most bilinguals maintain two separate acoustic distributions for the laterals in their two languages, some participants do not. Social-indexical and cognitive factors that could explain this finding are discussed.

Phonetic consequences of dynamic cross-linguistic interference in proficient bilinguals

Abstract This study investigates the production and perception of a Catalan-specific vowel contrast by a group of highly proficient, early-onset Catalan–Spanish bilinguals. Spanish has a mid-back vowel (/o/), while Catalan has two (/o/, / ɔ / ). Most importantly, the study manipulates the amount of activation of the Spanish lexicon in two experimental sessions to examine the transient aspects of cross-linguistic phonetic interference. In the first (unilingual) session speakers produce words in one of their languages only, Catalan. In the second (bilingual) session bilinguals produce words in both of their languages, in random order. The acoustic analysis consists of comparing the height of Catalan [o] and [ ɔ ] in the two sessions, as well as verifying whether bilinguals possess separate categories for these two vowels in the first place. The results show that the presence (vs. absence) of Spanish words in the task affects the realization of the two Catalan mid-back vowels by bilinguals. In particular, the two Catalan vowels become slightly more similar to Spanish [o] when they are pronounced alongside this vowel.

Production of a catalan-specific vowel contrast by early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals

The present study investigates the acoustics (F1 × F2) of Catalan and Spanish mid-back vowels as produced by highly proficient, early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals residing on the island of Majorca, a bilingual speech community. Majorcan Catalan has two phonemic mid-back vowels in stressed positions (/o/ and /c/) while Spanish possesses only one (/o/). Two groups of bilinguals were recruited and asked to produce materials in both languages – one group of Spanishdominant and one of Catalan-dominant speakers. It was first found that Catalan and Spanish /o/ are virtually indistinguishable. Catalan /c/ is lower and more fronted than the other two vowels. Spanish-dominant bilinguals were found to differ from Catalan-dominant ones in that they did not produce the Catalan-specific /o/-/c/ contrast in their speech; that is, they produced a single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel. A within-subjects analysis of first- and second-language mid-back vowels further suggested, for Spanish-dominant bilinguals, that they had developed a separate vowel category to accommodate their single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel; that is, they possessed a two-category mid-back vowel system, i.e. one for their Spanish /o/ and one for their merged Catalan /o/ + /c/. Potential explanations and theoretical implications are discussed.

Intonational convergence in language contact: Utterance-final F0 contours in Catalan–Spanish early bilinguals

Thisstudyinvestigatesutterance-finalpitchaccentsindeclarativesintwocontactlanguages (Catalan and Spanish) as produced by two groups of Catalan‐Spanish bilinguals (Catalandominant and Spanish-dominant). It contributes to a growing body of research showing that bilinguals transfer the intonational patterns of their native language to their non-native language, and it provides a sociolinguistic profile of an intonational variable in a language contact situation. We also examine the interaction of native and non-native patterns within the performance of the bilinguals. Evidence is presented for the existence of a process of phonetic category assimilation of non-native pitch contrasts to native pitch contours, as well as for phonetic new-category formation in second language learning.

Adult Second Language Learning of Spanish Vowels.

The present study reports on the findings of a cross-sectional acoustic study of the production of Spanish vowels by three different groups of speakers: 1) native Spanish speakers; 2) native English intermediate learners of Spanish; and 3) native English advanced learners of Spanish. In particular, we examined the production of the five Spanish phonemic monophthongs (/i e a o u/) in two prosodic positions: stressed and unstressed. Since Spanish and English vary in the nature of the difference between stressed and unstressed vowels, a logical question is: How does the relationship between stressed and unstressed vowels differ across the three groups of participants? Do the learners transfer English patterns to their Spanish? The findings are discussed in terms of their significance for current models of second language speech learning and provide important information regarding the paths of pronunciation development in the second language acquisition of Spanish.

A contrastive study of Catalan and Spanish declarative intonation: Focus on Majorcan dialects

Abstract The goal of the present paper is to identify some of the differences in the intonation of Catalan and Spanish as spoken in Majorca. The tonal features we investigated were: (1) utterance-final pitch accents in broad focus declaratives, and (2) local contrastive focus pitch accents. Previous research, mostly on related varieties, such as Central Catalan and Castilian Spanish, had indirectly suggested that potential differences could arise with regards to these specific configurations (Estebas, Phonetic and phonological properties of the final pitch accent in Catalan declaratives: 35–40, Université de Nantes, 2003a, Estebas, Atlantis Journal 25: 39–53, 2003c; Face, Intonational marking of contrastive focus in Madrid Spanish, Lincom Europa, 2002a, Face, Southwest Journal of Linguistics 23: 65–79, 2004). The Majorcan dialects of Catalan and Spanish were found to fundamentally differ in the shape and alignment patterns of their utterance-final pitch accents (of broad focus declaratives) in that Catalan displayed low or falling pitch accents while Spanish presented small rising-falling pitch accents. On the other hand, statistical differences were found with respect to the alignment of pitch valleys culminating rising-falling pitch contours in contrastive focus accents. Overall, the findings reported here add to our knowledge of the intonational differences and similarities between Romance languages by comparing two contact languages using similar materials and under identical experimental conditions. These findings are relevant for comparative-historical purposes and future language contact studies.

Production and perception of the English /æ/–/ɑ/ contrast in switched-dominance speakers

This study investigates how fluent second-language (L2) learners of English produce and perceive the /æ/–/ɑ/ vowel contrast of Southwestern American English. Two learner groups are examined: (1) early, proficient English speakers who were raised by Spanish-speaking families but who became dominant in English during childhood and, as adults, lack communicative abilities in Spanish, and (2) Spanish-speaking late learners of English who continue to be dominant in Spanish. The participants provided data in three tasks: one production and two perceptual. The study finds that both learner groups differ from native controls in their production and perception of the /æ/–/ɑ/ contrast. The findings shed light on our understanding of the relative effects of age (at onset of language exposure) and language dominance (at time of testing) by showing that sequential bilingualism impacts phonetic behavior even when speakers have become dominant in the target language.

Nuclear Pitch Accents in Majorcan Catalan Declaratives: Phonology, Phonetics, Diachrony

Abstract The present paper reports on the findings of an acoustic study of nuclear pitch accents in Majorcan Catalan. A total of 10 speakers participated in a production experiment. Nuclear pitch accents were investigated by measuring relative pitch changes between several sequential temporal landmarks in and around nuclear stressed syllables in read-aloud declaratives. The results provide evidence for the presence of a low (L) tone associated with the nuclear stressed syllable for 9 of the 10 participants, and that of a high (H) trailing tone for only 4 of the participants. The implications of these results for a phonological analysis of Majorcan Catalan nuclear pitch accents, as well as the diachrony of nuclear pitch accents in Iberian Romance, are discussed.

An acoustic study of coarticulatory resistance in “dark” and “light” alveolar laterals

Abstract This study reports on the results of an acoustic investigation on the effects of contextual vowels on alveolar laterals in two languages, Spanish and Catalan. In particular, two contact varieties of these languages, those spoken on the island of Majorca, are compared. Catalan /l/ has been described as “dark” and Spanish /l/ as “light” or “clear,” and these characterizations have been confirmed with acoustic and articulatory data. Furthermore, it has been suggested that pharyngealization (or velarization) degree in the laterals affects their degree of coarticulatory resistance, with pharyngealized laterals being more resistant to coarticulation than non-pharyngealized ones. This is attributed to tighter articulatory control of the tongue body in pharyngealized than non-pharyngealized laterals. This study tests this hypothesis with acoustic data from 10 (Majorcan) Catalan and 10 (Majorcan) Spanish male speakers, and it shows that coarticulatory resistance is indeed modulated by the degree of pharyngealization of the laterals. Importantly, in addition to finding a difference in coarticulatory resistance between the two language varieties, the study finds that by-speaker average pharyngealization in the laterals is a significant linear predictor of by-speaker coarticulatory resistance in these sounds.

Second Language Acquisition of Spanish /e/ and /ei/ by Native English Speakers

The present article reports on the findings of a cross-sectional acoustic study of the production of the Spanish /e/-/ei/ contrast, as in pena-peina and reno-reino, by native-English intermediate and advanced learners of Spanish. The acoustic parameter that distinguishes Spanish /e/ from /ei/ is formant change—/e/ is a monophthong and /ei/ is a diphthong. English, on the other hand, has a mid front monophthong /ɛ/ (bet, debt) and a mid-to-high front diphthong /eɪ/ (bait, date). These vowels differ in both their overall place of articulation and in their dynamic characteristics. Spanish /e/ is similar to both English /ɛ/ and /eɪ/ but is not identical to any of the two vowels; Spanish /ei/ is similar, but also not identical, to English /eɪ/. This situation creates complex inter-lingual interactions for the learners. The study addresses these interactions as they are evidenced in speech production. The findings are discussed in terms of their significance for current models of second language speech learning and provide important information regarding the paths of pronunciation development in the second-language acquisition of Spanish vowels by adult native speakers of American English.