Type of early bilingualism effect on the delateralization of /ʎ/ in Basque and Spanish

Abstract

The contrast between /ʎ/ and /ʝ/ has been lost in most Spanish varieties. This merger (yeísmo) has also been claimed to have spread to Basque. I study the palatal merger in Azpeitia Basque and Spanish, where simultaneous (2L1 Basque, Spanish) and early-sequential (L1 Basque, L2 Spanish) groups were tested in both languages. Comparing the two bilingual groups, this study found that, as a group, early-sequential bilinguals do not merge the phonemes in either of the two languages. However, while simultaneous bilinguals maintain the distinction in Basque, they tend to merge the phonemes in Spanish. Inter-speaker variation is found within each group and individual reports do not confirm global results. This study has also encountered different types of speakers as far as the palatal merger is concerned in Basque and Spanish: (1) non-mergers in any of the languages, (2) mergers in both languages, (3) mergers only in Spanish, and (4) mergers only in Basque.

Phonetics of Early Bilingualism

“…These results suggest that for early bilinguals who have been exposed to both the minority (i.e., heritage) language and the majority language early in life, the effects of those structures that were acquired during the formative first years of life are extremely persistent and are carried into adulthood. In a recent production study examining the merger of the voiced palatal lateral /ʎ/ and the voiced palatal fricative /ʝ/ into [ ʝ] in Basque and Spanish, Beristain (2021) reported that early sequential (L1 Basque) bilinguals maintain a more robust acoustic distinction between /ʎ/ and /ʝ/ in Spanish than simultaneous bilinguals (2L1 Basque, Spanish), who show a tendency toward a merger. The findings of both of these production studies on early Spanish-English and Basque-Spanish bilinguals support the claim that differences in the quantity of input and exposure during these early developmental stages have consequences in the production of language-specific segments and match the perception results in Sebastián-Gallés et al (2005), showing that even the slightest variation in the amount of language exposure during the earliest stages of language development can affect an individual's perceptual abilities into adulthood.…”