In this study two techniques were used to analyze the linguistic rhythm of Mexican Spanish/English bilinguals in Los Angeles (California): (i)-nPVI, consisting of measurements of durations of successive pairs of vowels, and (ii)-voicing ratios, consisting of a function that calculates the voiced and voiceless portions of the signal. The speech of forty-nine participants in five groups was examined: (G1)-twelve native speakers of English, (G2)-eight Mexican Sp/Eng adult bilinguals who have been in L.A. since childhood, (G3)-eleven Mexican Sp/Eng young bilinguals descendants of immigrants and born in L.A., (G4)-seven Mexican Sp/Eng adult bilinguals who moved to L.A. as adults and (G5)-eleven native speakers of Spanish who have stayed in L.A. for a short period of time. Both methodologies indicate that G1 and G2 show English-like rhythm in both languages while G4 and G5 present Spanish-like rhythm. G3 accommodates rhythm depending on the language. Results reveal how rhythm can suffer attrition and transfer processes depending on the age or length of exposure to the L2. The study also highlights the unique linguistic situation of Los Angeles where members of the Mexican community have different levels of exposure to the Spanish and English languages.

the study of transfer and variation processes at different levels of 1 El contacto de lenguas provee un marco idóneo para el estudio de de la lengua es la que controla la introducción de nuevos elementos en el 1 Este trabajo ha sido realizado gracias a la ayuda institucional concedida por el

In this study, the intonation of one-word imperatives is compared with that of one-word declaratives in Peninsular Spanish in order to establish differences and similarities between them. The analysis of 373 utterances produced by 8 speakers (117 in a declarative context and 256 in an imperative context) demonstrates that the intonational link between declaratives and imperatives is irrefutable since L+H* L% configurations are found in both pragmatic contexts. Nevertheless, imperatives can also show tonal movements not found in declaratives: L+H* LH%, L+H* HL%, L+H* H%, L* H%. Finally, the study demonstrates that due to the limitations short imperative utterances involve, speakers implement tonal movements rarely attested in imperatives with multiple pitch accents.

The current study employs multiple techniques (C%, V%, DC, DV, nPVI C, nPVI V, Varco DC, Varco DV) designed to detect rhythmic similarities and differences in order to compare the linguistic rhythm of Basque to those of Spanish and Japanese. The analysis of the productions of 24 Spanish/Basque bilinguals (twelve with Basque as their L1 and twelve as their L2), and nine native speakers of Japanese revealed that, although Spanish and Basque have generally been considered syllable-timed languages, the latter resembles moraic languages due to the length and variability of its vocalic intervals. At the same time, the similarities of the rhythmic properties of the euskaldunberri speakers (Basque as L2) and the euskaldunzaharra speakers (Basque as L1) suggest that inter-linguistic rhythmic transfers are not noticeable and that rhythmic characteristic in Spanish and Basque are connected to their respective syllabic preferences and not to phonological or phonetic processes implemented by the speakers.