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Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages
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Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2024) | Viewed by 5740

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Interests: phonetics; laboratory phonology; sociophonetics; second language acquisition of phonology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We invite proposals for contributions to a Special Issue of Languages entitled “Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages”. The goal of this Special Issue is to showcase current research on the phonetics and phonology of the Ibero-Romance languages, focusing on synchronic phenomena and including different theoretical and methodological approaches, to give a representative view of the state of the field.

We welcome studies on any Ibero-Romance language or languages, including comparative approaches, and particularly encourage submissions on lesser studied languages, varieties, or communities of speakers. Contributions may focus on any aspect of the sound system of these languages at the sub-segmental, segmental, syllabic, or prosodic levels. The Special Issue will cover a wide range of topics including, but not limited to, contributions to phonological theory based on new data; new theoretical approaches to long-standing phonological issues; laboratory approaches to phonology; issues at the phonetics–phonology interface; experimental phonetics including production and perception studies; phonetic modelling of production and perception patterns; sociophonetics; and innovative methodological approaches to recurring issues. The Special Issue will not only speak to researchers working on Ibero-Romance languages but will also reach a wider audience by highlighting how research on these languages contributes to general phonological and phonetic debates.

Tentative Completion Schedule:

  • Abstract Submission Deadline: July 15, 2023
  • Notification of Abstract Acceptance: August 15, 2023
  • Full Manuscript Deadline: February 15, 2024

Dr. Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editor ([email protected]).

After authors receive the notification of abstract acceptance, manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously. Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website.

All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI. Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Ibero-Romance languages
  • phonetics
  • phonology
  • sound patterns
  • formal phonology experimental phonetics
  • laboratory phonology
  • sociophonetics

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 1861 KiB  
Article
The Interplay between Syllabic Duration and Melody to Indicate Prosodic Functions in Brazilian Portuguese Story Retelling
by Plinio A. Barbosa and Luís H. G. Alvarenga
Languages 2024, 9(8), 268; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9080268 - 1 Aug 2024
Viewed by 412
Abstract
This paper investigates the relationship between syllabic duration and F0 contours for implementing three prosodic functions. Work on rhythm usually describes the evolution of syllable-sized durations throughout utterances, rarely making reference to melodic events. On the other hand, work on intonation usually describes [...] Read more.
This paper investigates the relationship between syllabic duration and F0 contours for implementing three prosodic functions. Work on rhythm usually describes the evolution of syllable-sized durations throughout utterances, rarely making reference to melodic events. On the other hand, work on intonation usually describes linear sequences of melodic events with indirect references to duration. Although some scholars have explored the relationship between these two parameters for particular functions, to our knowledge, there has been no investigation on the systematic correlation between syllabic duration and F0 values throughout narrative sequences. Based on a corpus of story retelling with nine speakers of Brazilian Portuguese from two regions, our work investigated the interplay between syllabic duration and melody to signal three prosodic functions: terminal and non-terminal boundary marking and prominence. The examination of local syllabic duration maxima and four F0 descriptors revealed that these maxima act as landmarks for particular F0 shapes: for non-terminal boundaries, the great majority of shapes were increasing and increasing–decreasing patterns; for terminal boundaries, almost all shapes were decreasing F0 patterns; and for prominence marking, the great majority of shapes were high tones across the stressed syllable. Time series analyses revealed significant correlations between duration and specific F0 descriptors, pointing to a ruled interplay between F0 and syllabic duration patterns in Brazilian Portuguese story retelling. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages)
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15 pages, 1693 KiB  
Article
The Effect of Manner of Articulation and Syllable Affiliation on Tongue Configuration for Catalan Stop–Liquid and Liquid–Stop Sequences: An Ultrasound Study
by Daniel Recasens
Languages 2024, 9(7), 233; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9070233 - 27 Jun 2024
Viewed by 637
Abstract
The present study reports tongue configuration data recorded with ultrasound for two sets of consonant sequences uttered by five native Catalan speakers. Articulatory data for the onset cluster pairs [kl]-[ɣl] and [kɾ]-[ɣɾ], and also for [l#k]-[l#ɣ] and [r#k]-[r#ɣ], analyzed in the first part [...] Read more.
The present study reports tongue configuration data recorded with ultrasound for two sets of consonant sequences uttered by five native Catalan speakers. Articulatory data for the onset cluster pairs [kl]-[ɣl] and [kɾ]-[ɣɾ], and also for [l#k]-[l#ɣ] and [r#k]-[r#ɣ], analyzed in the first part of the investigation revealed that, as a general rule, the (shorter) velar approximant is less constricted than the (longer) voiceless velar stop at the velar and palatal zones while exhibiting a more retracted tongue body at the pharynx. These manner of articulation-dependent differences may extend into the preceding liquid. Data for [k#l]-[kl] and [k#r]-[kɾ] dealt with in the second part of the study show that the velar is articulated with more tongue body retraction for [k#l] vs. [kl] and for [k#r] vs. [kɾ], and with a higher tongue dorsum for [k#l] vs. [kl] and the reverse for [k#r] vs. [kɾ]. Therefore, clusters are produced with a more extreme lingual configuration across a word boundary than in syllable-onset position, which at least in part may be predicted by segmental factors for the [k#r]-[kɾ] pair. These articulatory data are compared with duration data for all sequence pairs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages)
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23 pages, 5891 KiB  
Article
The Role of (Re)Syllabification on Coarticulatory Nasalization: Aerodynamic Evidence from Spanish
by Ander Beristain
Languages 2024, 9(6), 219; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9060219 - 17 Jun 2024
Viewed by 833
Abstract
Tautosyllabic segment sequences exhibit greater gestural overlap than heterosyllabic ones. In Spanish, it is presumed that word-final consonants followed by a word-initial vowel undergo resyllabification, and generative phonology assumes that canonical CV.CV# and derived CV.C#V onsets are structurally [...] Read more.
Tautosyllabic segment sequences exhibit greater gestural overlap than heterosyllabic ones. In Spanish, it is presumed that word-final consonants followed by a word-initial vowel undergo resyllabification, and generative phonology assumes that canonical CV.CV# and derived CV.C#V onsets are structurally identical. However, recent studies have not found evidence of this structural similarity in the acoustics. The current goal is to investigate anticipatory and carryover vowel nasalization patterns in tautosyllabic, heterosyllabic, and resyllabified segment sequences in Spanish. Nine native speakers of Peninsular Spanish participated in a read-aloud task. Nasal airflow data were extracted using pressure transducers connected to a vented mask. Each participant produced forty target tokens with CV.CV# (control), CVN# (tautosyllabic), CV.NV# (heterosyllabic), and CV.N#V (resyllabification) structures. Forty timepoints were obtained from each vowel to observe airflow dynamics, resulting in a total of 25,200 datapoints analyzed. Regarding anticipatory vowel nasalization, the CVN# sequence shows an earlier onset of nasalization, while CV.NV# and CV.N#V sequences illustrate parallel patterns among them. Carryover vowel nasalization exhibited greater nasal spreading than anticipatory nasalization, and vowels in CV.NV# and CV.N#V structures showed symmetrical nasalization patterns. These results imply that syllable structure affects nasal gestural overlap and that aerodynamic characteristics of vowels are unaffected across word boundaries. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages)
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28 pages, 4013 KiB  
Article
Buenas no[tʃ]es y mu[ts]isimas gracias: A Sociophonetic Study of the Alveolar Affricate in Peninsular Spanish Political Speech
by Matthew Pollock
Languages 2024, 9(6), 218; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9060218 - 14 Jun 2024
Viewed by 840
Abstract
While variation in the southern Peninsular Spanish affricate /tʃ/ has been considered in the context of deaffrication to [ʃ], this study examines an emergent variant [ts] in the context of sociolinguistic identity and style in political speech. Based on a corpus of public [...] Read more.
While variation in the southern Peninsular Spanish affricate /tʃ/ has been considered in the context of deaffrication to [ʃ], this study examines an emergent variant [ts] in the context of sociolinguistic identity and style in political speech. Based on a corpus of public speech from Madrid and Andalusia, Spain, this study examines the phonetic and sociolinguistic characteristics of the affricate, finding variation in the quality of the frication portion of the segment through an analysis of segment duration (ms), the center of gravity (Hz), and a categorical identification of realization type. The results suggest that both linguistic variables, like phonetic environment, stress, lexical frequency, and following vowel formant height, as well as extralinguistic variables, like speaker city, gender, political affiliation, and speech context, condition use. Based on these findings, it appears that production of the alveolar affricate [ts] is an incipient sociolinguistic marker in the process of acquiring social meaning. It is particularly associated with female speech and prestige norms that transcend regional identification. This alveolar variant serves as an additional sociolinguistic resource accessible for identity development among politicians and offers insight into ongoing change in the affricate inventory of southern and northern-central Peninsular Spanish. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages)
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18 pages, 3932 KiB  
Article
Phonation Patterns in Spanish Vowels: Spectral and Spectrographic Analysis
by Carolina González, Susan L. Cox and Gabrielle R. Isgar
Languages 2024, 9(6), 214; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9060214 - 12 Jun 2024
Viewed by 474
Abstract
This article provides a detailed examination of voice quality in word-final vowels in Spanish. The experimental task involved the pronunciation of words in two prosodic contexts by native Spanish speakers from diverse dialects. A total of 400 vowels (10 participants × 10 words [...] Read more.
This article provides a detailed examination of voice quality in word-final vowels in Spanish. The experimental task involved the pronunciation of words in two prosodic contexts by native Spanish speakers from diverse dialects. A total of 400 vowels (10 participants × 10 words × 2 contexts × 2 repetitions) were analyzed acoustically in Praat. Waveforms and spectrograms were inspected visually for voice, creak, breathy voice, and devoicing cues. In addition, the relative amplitude difference between the first two harmonics (H1–H2) was obtained via FFT spectra. The findings reveal that while creaky voice is pervasive, breathy voice is also common, and devoicing occurs in 11% of tokens. We identify multiple phonation types (up to three) within the same vowel, of which modal voice followed by breathy voice was the most common combination. While creaky voice was more frequent overall for males, modal voice tended to be more common in females. In addition, creaky voice was significantly more common at the end of higher prosodic constituents. The analysis of spectral tilt shows that H1–H2 clearly distinguishes breathy voice from modal voice in both males and females, while H1–H2 values consistently discriminate creaky and modal voice in male participants only. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages)
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24 pages, 689 KiB  
Article
A Feature Alignment Approach to Plural Realization in Eastern Andalusian Spanish
by Stuart Davis and Matthew Pollock
Languages 2024, 9(5), 166; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9050166 - 2 May 2024
Viewed by 1054
Abstract
Using an optimality theoretic analysis, this study offers a conception of the problem of plural realization in Eastern Andalusian Spanish (EAS) where plural suffix /s/ was deleted diachronically that differs from other accounts that assign the EAS plural an underlying suffixal /s/ synchronically. [...] Read more.
Using an optimality theoretic analysis, this study offers a conception of the problem of plural realization in Eastern Andalusian Spanish (EAS) where plural suffix /s/ was deleted diachronically that differs from other accounts that assign the EAS plural an underlying suffixal /s/ synchronically. Using alignment constraints, we argue that plural /s/ does not appear in the underlying form synchronically in EAS, but that instead the plural morpheme is represented by a floating [–ATR]PL feature that aligns to the right edge of the word and spreads left. The [–ATR] feature, represented phonetically as a laxing or opening of vowels, applies to all mid vowels, low vowels in word final position, and combines with vowel epenthesis to explain Eastern Andalusian pluralization tendencies in words with final consonants. We discuss the behavior of high vowels, which can be transparent to harmony, and focus in particular on the plural of words that end in a final stressed vowel that have been rarely discussed in the EAS literature. We develop an optimality-theoretic analysis on the Granada variety and extend that analysis to other varieties with somewhat different patterns. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phonetics and Phonology of Ibero-Romance Languages)
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