Estudio comparativo de /s/ en el español de Puerto Rico y los dialectos cubano y dominicano

Wilfredo Valentin-Marquez

doi:10.7557/1.11.2.6424

Authors

Wilfredo Valentin-Marquez Millersville University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/1.11.2.6424

Keywords:

Caribbean Spanish, dialect contact, phonetic variation, social networks

Abstract

Although /s/ is the most scrutinized phoneme in the Spanish inventory, there are few comparative studies of its realizations by groups of the Hispanic diaspora in the United States. Studies that compare the production of phonetic features by speakers of different dialects have been carried out in communities where Mexicans and Puerto Ricans are the largest Hispanic groups (Gosh 2005, Potowski 2008, Ramos-Pellicia 2012). However, apart from Lamboy (2004), we are unaware of studies that analyze any differences between the Puerto Rican variety and the Cuban and Dominican dialects, in the same community, in regards to their common pattern of /s/ reduction. This quantitative study compares the realizations of /s/ produced by Puerto Rican speakers from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with those produced by Cubans and Dominicans from the same city. Phonetic data, verbal judgments, and demographic information were collected to study the relationship between the production of /s/ variants and the degree of integration of the informants into their national community. Although the data reflected a similar distribution of the allophonic inventory in the three groups, the glottal stop was identified in the Puerto Rican data. This variant is absent from the repertoire of the other two dialects and has not been previously reported in studies of Puerto Rican Spanish in the United States. The results are discussed in light of the bilingual proficiency of the informants, their social networks and their perceptions about the vernacular dialect and the other Caribbean varieties.

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