Cascadilla Proceedings Project: Paper 1712


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Selected Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology
edited by Laura Colantoni and Jeffrey Steele

ISBN 978-1-57473-424-9 library binding
v+181 pages
publication date: 2008
published by Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA, USA

Table of contents



Abstract

Eugenio Martínez-Celdrán
Some Chimeras of Traditional Spanish Phonetics
32-46 (complete pdf)

The title of this paper contains the word 'chimera,' understood as "an unrealistic idea you have about something" (Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary). Three such chimeras will be examined. Firstly, the author looks at the phonetic analyses of the traditionally so-called voiced fricatives of Spanish, allophonic variants of homorganic stops, and offers evidence in support of their classification as spirant approximants. Secondly, he considers the status of voicing in Spanish phonology and argues for its instability in the phonetics of Spanish dialects. He reaches the conclusion that voicing cannot be considered phonologically distinctive. Lastly, he attempts to determine whether [t,d] are in fact apico-dental, as many handbooks of Spanish phonetics claim. Electropalatography reveals ample contact with the alveolar ridge, which suggests that they are better described as laminal denti-alveolars.


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