Abstract
The present study investigates the acoustics (F1 × F2) of Catalan and Spanish mid-back vowels as produced by highly proficient, early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals residing on the island of Majorca, a bilingual speech community. Majorcan Catalan has two phonemic mid-back vowels in stressed positions (/o/ and /c/) while Spanish possesses only one (/o/). Two groups of bilinguals were recruited and asked to produce materials in both languages - one group of Spanishdominant and one of Catalan-dominant speakers. It was first found that Catalan and Spanish /o/ are virtually indistinguishable. Catalan /c/ is lower and more fronted than the other two vowels. Spanish-dominant bilinguals were found to differ from Catalan-dominant ones in that they did not produce the Catalan-specific /o/-/c/ contrast in their speech; that is, they produced a single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel. A within-subjects analysis of first- and second-language mid-back vowels further suggested, for Spanish-dominant bilinguals, that they had developed a separate vowel category to accommodate their single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel; that is, they possessed a two-category mid-back vowel system, i.e. one for their Spanish /o/ and one for their merged Catalan /o/ + /c/. Potential explanations and theoretical implications are discussed.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 88-110 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Phonetica |
| Volume | 68 |
| Issue number | 1-2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2011 |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Acoustics and Ultrasonics
- Linguistics and Language
Cite this
Production of a catalan-specific vowel contrast by early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals. / Simonet, Miguel -.
In: Phonetica, Vol. 68, No. 1-2, 07.2011, p. 88-110.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Production of a catalan-specific vowel contrast by early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals
AU - Simonet, Miguel -
PY - 2011/7
Y1 - 2011/7
N2 - The present study investigates the acoustics (F1 × F2) of Catalan and Spanish mid-back vowels as produced by highly proficient, early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals residing on the island of Majorca, a bilingual speech community. Majorcan Catalan has two phonemic mid-back vowels in stressed positions (/o/ and /c/) while Spanish possesses only one (/o/). Two groups of bilinguals were recruited and asked to produce materials in both languages - one group of Spanishdominant and one of Catalan-dominant speakers. It was first found that Catalan and Spanish /o/ are virtually indistinguishable. Catalan /c/ is lower and more fronted than the other two vowels. Spanish-dominant bilinguals were found to differ from Catalan-dominant ones in that they did not produce the Catalan-specific /o/-/c/ contrast in their speech; that is, they produced a single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel. A within-subjects analysis of first- and second-language mid-back vowels further suggested, for Spanish-dominant bilinguals, that they had developed a separate vowel category to accommodate their single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel; that is, they possessed a two-category mid-back vowel system, i.e. one for their Spanish /o/ and one for their merged Catalan /o/ + /c/. Potential explanations and theoretical implications are discussed.
AB - The present study investigates the acoustics (F1 × F2) of Catalan and Spanish mid-back vowels as produced by highly proficient, early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals residing on the island of Majorca, a bilingual speech community. Majorcan Catalan has two phonemic mid-back vowels in stressed positions (/o/ and /c/) while Spanish possesses only one (/o/). Two groups of bilinguals were recruited and asked to produce materials in both languages - one group of Spanishdominant and one of Catalan-dominant speakers. It was first found that Catalan and Spanish /o/ are virtually indistinguishable. Catalan /c/ is lower and more fronted than the other two vowels. Spanish-dominant bilinguals were found to differ from Catalan-dominant ones in that they did not produce the Catalan-specific /o/-/c/ contrast in their speech; that is, they produced a single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel. A within-subjects analysis of first- and second-language mid-back vowels further suggested, for Spanish-dominant bilinguals, that they had developed a separate vowel category to accommodate their single, merged Catalan mid-back vowel; that is, they possessed a two-category mid-back vowel system, i.e. one for their Spanish /o/ and one for their merged Catalan /o/ + /c/. Potential explanations and theoretical implications are discussed.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79960747670&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=79960747670&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1159/000328847
DO - 10.1159/000328847
M3 - Article
C2 - 21804334
AN - SCOPUS:79960747670
VL - 68
SP - 88
EP - 110
JO - Phonetica
JF - Phonetica
SN - 0031-8388
IS - 1-2
ER -