Perception of the Palatal Consonant in Yeísta Dialects: a Chilean Spanish Case Study
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Phonetics and Phonology
Location
MBSC Gallery Room 308
Start Date
17-10-2024 4:00 PM
End Date
17-10-2024 4:30 PM
Abstract
I prepared my abstract in Latex and was hoping to submit as a PDF version of it so that special characters and formatting could be kept intact. Here is the copied and pasted version of the abstract, but I have also attached the PDF version to this submission. Perception of the Palatal Consonant in Ye ́ısta Dialects:
a Chilean Spanish Case Study
Keywords: Perception, Chilean Spanish, yod
Studies on the palatal consonant in Spanish, generally represented as /J/ or
/j/, typically focus on its status in relation to /L/ within lle ́ısta dialects. There
are very few that examine acoustic properties of the consonant e.g. Mart ́ınez-
Celdr ́an, 2015 or look at perception of the consonant in ye ́ısta contexts e.g. D ́ıaz-
Campos and Morgan, 2002; Shea and Renauld, 2014; Denbaum and Raynor
2024. This present study examines perception of two allophones in Chilean
Spanish of the phoneme, one acoustically confirmed to be an approximatized
fricative, denoted by [J
fi] and a affricate variant, denoted by [dZ].
Previous literature states, both in descriptions of generalized Spanish and
Chilean Spanish, that ’weaker’ allophones of the phoneme i.e. fricative and
approximant variants occur in intervocalic contexts while the ’stronger’ allo-
phones i.e. affricate or plosive variants occur before a pause or a nasal/lateral
consonant (Navarro Tom ́as 1918, 1956; Canfield 1962; Lope-Blanch 1966, 1970;
Sadowsky and Salamanca 2011; Silva Fuenzealida 2018). In other words, the
allophones are said to exist in complementary distribution, constrained only by
phonetic context and not other factors. Thus, this paper examines the percep-
tion of both variants in intervocalic contexts by speakers of Chilean Spanish.
Participants were asked to complete two tasks: an AX discrimination task and a
Visual Analog Slider (VAS) identification task. For the AX discrimination task,
participants were presented with two realizations of a word containing /j/ in an
intervocalic context e.g. botella (bottle). Each contained either the affricate or
approximant variation. Participants were asked if the tokens sounded the same
or different. For the VAS task, participants were given instances of tokens from
the AX section, and were asked to rate the productions on several scales:
1. Foreign sounding - Chilean Sounding
2. Robotic Sounding - Human Sounding
3. Incorrect Sounding - Correct Sounding
The second item was included for control since some of the stimuli were cre-
ated synthetically. The results suggest that, in general, while Chilean speakers
cannot distinguish between the two variants, there is a tendency for intervo-
calic [J
fi] to be perceived as more ’Chilean’ and ’correct’, while intervocalic [dZ]
is perceived as ’foreign’ and ’incorrect’. This therefore seems to verify previous
literature, at least for Chilean Spanish speakers, that [J
fi] but not [dZ] should
occur in intervocalic contexts.
Abstract
Perception of the Palatal Consonant in Yeísta Dialects: a Chilean Spanish Case Study
MBSC Gallery Room 308
I prepared my abstract in Latex and was hoping to submit as a PDF version of it so that special characters and formatting could be kept intact. Here is the copied and pasted version of the abstract, but I have also attached the PDF version to this submission. Perception of the Palatal Consonant in Ye ́ısta Dialects:
a Chilean Spanish Case Study
Keywords: Perception, Chilean Spanish, yod
Studies on the palatal consonant in Spanish, generally represented as /J/ or
/j/, typically focus on its status in relation to /L/ within lle ́ısta dialects. There
are very few that examine acoustic properties of the consonant e.g. Mart ́ınez-
Celdr ́an, 2015 or look at perception of the consonant in ye ́ısta contexts e.g. D ́ıaz-
Campos and Morgan, 2002; Shea and Renauld, 2014; Denbaum and Raynor
2024. This present study examines perception of two allophones in Chilean
Spanish of the phoneme, one acoustically confirmed to be an approximatized
fricative, denoted by [J
fi] and a affricate variant, denoted by [dZ].
Previous literature states, both in descriptions of generalized Spanish and
Chilean Spanish, that ’weaker’ allophones of the phoneme i.e. fricative and
approximant variants occur in intervocalic contexts while the ’stronger’ allo-
phones i.e. affricate or plosive variants occur before a pause or a nasal/lateral
consonant (Navarro Tom ́as 1918, 1956; Canfield 1962; Lope-Blanch 1966, 1970;
Sadowsky and Salamanca 2011; Silva Fuenzealida 2018). In other words, the
allophones are said to exist in complementary distribution, constrained only by
phonetic context and not other factors. Thus, this paper examines the percep-
tion of both variants in intervocalic contexts by speakers of Chilean Spanish.
Participants were asked to complete two tasks: an AX discrimination task and a
Visual Analog Slider (VAS) identification task. For the AX discrimination task,
participants were presented with two realizations of a word containing /j/ in an
intervocalic context e.g. botella (bottle). Each contained either the affricate or
approximant variation. Participants were asked if the tokens sounded the same
or different. For the VAS task, participants were given instances of tokens from
the AX section, and were asked to rate the productions on several scales:
1. Foreign sounding - Chilean Sounding
2. Robotic Sounding - Human Sounding
3. Incorrect Sounding - Correct Sounding
The second item was included for control since some of the stimuli were cre-
ated synthetically. The results suggest that, in general, while Chilean speakers
cannot distinguish between the two variants, there is a tendency for intervo-
calic [J
fi] to be perceived as more ’Chilean’ and ’correct’, while intervocalic [dZ]
is perceived as ’foreign’ and ’incorrect’. This therefore seems to verify previous
literature, at least for Chilean Spanish speakers, that [J
fi] but not [dZ] should
occur in intervocalic contexts.