'Éramos más humiɾdes': An Acoustic Approximation to Liquid Production in Southwestern Dominican Republic
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Phonetics & Phonology
Location
MBSC Gallery Room 308
Start Date
18-10-2024 9:00 AM
End Date
18-10-2024 9:30 AM
Abstract
'Éramos más humiɾdes': An Acoustic Approximation to Liquid Production in Southwestern Dominican Republic
Abstract
Traditionally, the Dominican Republic has been divided geographically based on how the liquids /l, ɾ/ are produced in coda position in the three macroregions of the country and in Santo Domingo. Researchers have reported that while in the Santo Domingo area there is a tendency to lambdacize taps, in the Eastern hemisphere liquids could be completely assimilated to a following stop, in the Cibao (northern region) liquids tend to be vocalized, and in the Southwestern provinces, rhotacism of laterals was common (Henríquez Ureña1937; Jiménez Sabater 1975; Willis and Díaz-Campos 2021; Pollock et al. 2024).
However, for the Southwestern region, descriptions of the area’s dialect were based on impressionistic descriptions and no systematic studies on this topic had been published. Applying innovative methods to explore coda liquids in the Southwest would allow us to further our general understanding of rhotacism and to shed light on possible changes. Therefore, this study's goal is to contribute to the current literature by exploring the production of liquids in coda position in the municipality of Duvergé, located in the Southwest, through means of an acoustic analysis.
13 natives of Duvergé participated in the study; their ages ranged from 25-83. Participants had various levels of education from primary to postgraduate degrees. Participants completed a reading task and an interview. The sounds of interest, /l ɾ/ in coda were categorized according to the type of realization based on acoustic information and auditory cues in Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2024). There were 1078 tokens of /ɾ/ and 838 of /l/ which were subjected to a descriptive statistical analysis.
Results show that /l/ are more stable than /ɾ/ in this dialect; the former were realized as laterals over 70% of the time. Furthermore, rhotacism of /l/ appears to be less common than the lateralization of /ɾ/ for this specific sample, which differs from what the earlier literature has reported for this dialectal region. Finally, the results show that the realization of these sounds is also affected by the type of task performed, as well as linguistic and social factors which will be discussed in the presentation.
References
Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer [Computer Program]. Version 6.4.05, 2024, www.praat.org/.
Henríquez Ureña, Pedro. “El Idioma Español y La Historia Política En Santo Domingo.” Obras Completas de Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Tomo IV, Secretaría de Estado de Cultura, 2003, pp. 239–249.
Jiménez Sabater, Max A. Mas Datos Sobre El Español de La República Dominicana. Ed. Intec, 1975.
Willis, Erik W., and Manuel Díaz-Campos. “THE PERCEPTION OF CODA LIQUIDS IN DOMINICAN SPANISH.” Topics in Spanish Linguistic Perceptions, Routledge, London, 2021, pp. 35–53.
Pollock, Matthew, et al. The Perception of Coda /ɾ/ and /l/in Dominican Spanish: Diversity,Geography, and Sociolinguistic Variation, 2024.
'Éramos más humiɾdes': An Acoustic Approximation to Liquid Production in Southwestern Dominican Republic
MBSC Gallery Room 308
'Éramos más humiɾdes': An Acoustic Approximation to Liquid Production in Southwestern Dominican Republic
Abstract
Traditionally, the Dominican Republic has been divided geographically based on how the liquids /l, ɾ/ are produced in coda position in the three macroregions of the country and in Santo Domingo. Researchers have reported that while in the Santo Domingo area there is a tendency to lambdacize taps, in the Eastern hemisphere liquids could be completely assimilated to a following stop, in the Cibao (northern region) liquids tend to be vocalized, and in the Southwestern provinces, rhotacism of laterals was common (Henríquez Ureña1937; Jiménez Sabater 1975; Willis and Díaz-Campos 2021; Pollock et al. 2024).
However, for the Southwestern region, descriptions of the area’s dialect were based on impressionistic descriptions and no systematic studies on this topic had been published. Applying innovative methods to explore coda liquids in the Southwest would allow us to further our general understanding of rhotacism and to shed light on possible changes. Therefore, this study's goal is to contribute to the current literature by exploring the production of liquids in coda position in the municipality of Duvergé, located in the Southwest, through means of an acoustic analysis.
13 natives of Duvergé participated in the study; their ages ranged from 25-83. Participants had various levels of education from primary to postgraduate degrees. Participants completed a reading task and an interview. The sounds of interest, /l ɾ/ in coda were categorized according to the type of realization based on acoustic information and auditory cues in Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2024). There were 1078 tokens of /ɾ/ and 838 of /l/ which were subjected to a descriptive statistical analysis.
Results show that /l/ are more stable than /ɾ/ in this dialect; the former were realized as laterals over 70% of the time. Furthermore, rhotacism of /l/ appears to be less common than the lateralization of /ɾ/ for this specific sample, which differs from what the earlier literature has reported for this dialectal region. Finally, the results show that the realization of these sounds is also affected by the type of task performed, as well as linguistic and social factors which will be discussed in the presentation.
References
Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer [Computer Program]. Version 6.4.05, 2024, www.praat.org/.
Henríquez Ureña, Pedro. “El Idioma Español y La Historia Política En Santo Domingo.” Obras Completas de Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Tomo IV, Secretaría de Estado de Cultura, 2003, pp. 239–249.
Jiménez Sabater, Max A. Mas Datos Sobre El Español de La República Dominicana. Ed. Intec, 1975.
Willis, Erik W., and Manuel Díaz-Campos. “THE PERCEPTION OF CODA LIQUIDS IN DOMINICAN SPANISH.” Topics in Spanish Linguistic Perceptions, Routledge, London, 2021, pp. 35–53.
Pollock, Matthew, et al. The Perception of Coda /ɾ/ and /l/in Dominican Spanish: Diversity,Geography, and Sociolinguistic Variation, 2024.