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Functionalist and Usage-based Approaches to the Study of Language: In honor of Joan L. Bybee
Edited by K. Aaron Smith and Dawn Nordquist
[Studies in Language Companion Series 192] 2018
► pp. 127–153

Cumulative exposure to phonetic reducing environments marks the lexicon

Spanish /d-/ words spoken in isolation

| University of Colorado Boulder

Reduced pronunciation variants of words commonly arise in discourse contexts promoting lenition. Words differ in their likelihood of occurrence in reducing contexts. We test whether words’ cumulative exposure to reducing environments significantly predicts phonological reduction in experimentally elicited data. Cumulative exposure is measured as the proportion of times words arise in phonetic contexts promoting reduced pronunciation variants (FRC). Results of instrumental analyses of the 503 Spanish word-initial /d-/ tokens produced by 18 native speakers show significant correlations between articulatory strength of the onset consonant (d-) and words’ production histories (FRC), independent of the production context. Additionally, linear modeling reveals a significant effect of FRC in predicting onset intensity. Results suggest a cumulative effect on the lexicon of words’ production histories.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Lexicalized effects of words’ context histories (FRC)
    • 2.2The dependent variable: Spanish /d-/ lenition
  • 3.Data and methods
    • 3.1Speakers
    • 3.2Materials
    • 3.3Recording
    • 3.4Acoustic measurements
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Variation
    • 4.2Variation & FRC_ APPROX
      • 4.2.1Relative strength of [d] articulations
      • 4.2.2Relative strength of approximant realizations [ð]
      • 4.2.3Linear modeling of onset variation
  • 5.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 1 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.192.06bro
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