A Phonetic Account of Spanish-English Bilinguals’ Divergence with Agreement

Abstract

Does bilingual language influence in the domain of phonetics impact the morphosyntactic domain? Spanish gender is encoded by word-final, unstressed vowels (/a e o/), which may diphthongize in word-boundary vowel sequences. English neutralizes unstressed final vowels and separates across-word vocalic sequences. The realization of gender vowels as schwa, due to cross-linguistic influence, may remain undetected if not directly analyzed. To explore the potential over-reporting of gender accuracy, we conducted parallel phonetic and morphosyntactic analyses of read and semi-spontaneous speech produced by 11 Monolingual speakers and 13 Early and 13 Late Spanish-English bilinguals. F1 and F2 values were extracted at five points for all word-final unstressed vowels and vowel sequences. All determiner phrases (DPs) from narratives were coded for morphological and contextual parameters. Early bilinguals exhibited clear patterns of vowel centralization and higher rates of hiatuses than the other groups. However, the morphological analysis yielded very few errors. A follow-up integrated analysis revealed that /a and o/ were realized as centralized vowels, particularly with [+Animate] nouns. We propose that bilinguals’ schwa-like realizations can be over-interpreted as target Spanish vowels. Such variable vowel realization may be a factor in the vulnerability to attrition in gender marking in Spanish as a heritage language.

Spanish in Albuquerque, New Mexico: Spanish-English Bilingual Adults’ and Children’s Vocalic Realizations

“…This spectral reduction in atonic vowels could be considered one linguistic result of the consistent contact and increased geographical proximity since the phonetic patterns of two named languages, 'Spanish' and 'English', used by an individual, have become more similar. The lack of word position effects found in the present study speaks to the fact that certain phonetic environments are more favorable or plausible sites for these phenomena, and that, at the very least, word position effects vary by community (Colantoni et al 2020). While the children all similarly realize vowels in atonic syllables different from those in tonic syllables, suggesting an overall change in the degree of phonetic convergence between Spanish-like and English-like sound patterns in Albuquerque, their /u/ fronting is more idiosyncratic and connected closely with their individual language use.…”

“…The bulk of Hispanic linguistics research on word position and vocalic realizations has centered on mid-vowel raising in varieties of Spanish spoken in Mexico (see Barajas 2015;Dabkowski 2018 for reviews). However, many studies on bilinguals' vowel spaces have not focused on potential word position effects, even though it can be another site favoring phonetic convergence (Colantoni et al 2020). To further expand our range of data and explanatory variables, the present study tests if word position affects their vocalic realizations.…”

Foreign Accent in Pre- and Primary School Heritage Bilinguals

“…From a linguistic perspective, it will be crucial to investigate in future studies whether differences in phonological production are mirrored in perception. Perception differences might have implications for the acquisition of morpho-syntactic properties, e.g., gender and number, which are typically marked by word-final sounds (Colantoni et al 2020). If these are perceived differently, they may also be produced differently.…”

Exploring racial and gender disparities in voice biometrics

“…As discussed in the “ Voice characteristics analysis ” section, for racial subgroups, the principal differences in voice properties result from phonation/formant. Latinx vowels (including /ɑ/) are generally shorter (in duration) than other subgroups, vary little in quality and remain contrastive in stressed and unstressed positions 47 . Moreover, Latinx speakers have lower F1 during isolated /ɑ/ prolongations compared to White speakers.…”