Convergence and intonation: historical evidence from Buenos Aires Spanish

Abstract

In this paper we present experimental evidence showing that Buenos Aires Spanish differs from other Spanish varieties in the realization of pre-nuclear pitch accents and in the final fall in broad focus declarative utterances. Whereas other Spanish varieties have been described consistently as showing late peak alignments, Buenos Aires Spanish displays early peak alignments. The alignment pattern found in Buenos Aires broad focus declarative utterances is not totally foreign to Spanish: it is attested in a quite different function, i.e. to signal contrastive focus. In addition, Buenos Aires Spanish also seems to differ from other Spanish varieties in the realization of the intonation contour in utterance-final intonational phrases, where a pronounced tendency for down-stepped peaks is observed. We argue that these patterns, which emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, and coincided with the peak of Italian immigration, are due to a combination of direct and indirect transfer from Italian. As a result, two intonational systems that were typologically similar before contact took place (Hualde, 2002) became more similar after contact, in what can be interpreted as a case of convergence.

The Contribution of Prosody to the Perception of Foreign Accent

“…Argentine Spanish, in which intonation is assumed to have been influenced by Spanish-Italian contact [Colantoni and Gurlekian, 2004]) or social accents (e.g. rural vs. urban).…”

The realization of contrastive focus in Peruvian Spanish intonation

“…The underlying phonological representation of these tonal targets lies beyond the scope of the present discussion, although an examination of research on Spanish and implications appears in Hualde (2002) and Face (2002). 9 However, there are examples of varieties that already show this type of stressed-syllable alignment under broad focus: Lekeitio Spanish (Elordieta, 2003), Buenos Aires Spanish (Barjam, 2004;Colantoni and Gurlekian, 2004), and Mexico City Spanish (Kim and Avelino, 2004). Previously, alignment of peaks within the tonic syllable was also found in broad focus declaratives for some Cuzco Spanish speakers (O'Rourke, 2004(O'Rourke, , 2005.…”

“…Rather, these bilinguals are employing unique contours not found in either source language of the region, that is L + H*. In Buenos Aires Spanish, prenuclear peaks are observed to show tonic alignment under broad focus, a realization that is attributed to a reanalysis of an Italian focal pitch accent that was applied during a prolonged period of language contact in Argentina with Italian and the Italian-influenced Spanish variety, Lunfardo (Colantoni and Gurlekian, 2004; see also Colantoni, 2011). McMahon (2004) notes that cases such as those found in Buenos Aires discussed by Colantoni and Gurlekian demonstrate the importance of tracking changes in intonation in situations of language contact as well as in non-contact situations.…”

“…Turning to Spanish, there are studies that show alignment of prenuclear peaks with the stressed syllable in broad focus utterances (e.g., Elordieta, 2003 for Lekeitio Spanish, andColantoni andGurlekian, 2004 for Buenos Aires Spanish). Elordieta (2003) notes that these Basque and Spanish bilinguals are not producing contours previously reported for Madrid and Peninsular Spanish nor do they employ the H* + L prenuclear pitch accent attributed to Basque.…”

Prosodic accommodation and salience: The nuclear contours of Andalusian Spanish speakers in Asturias

“…Although most of the work on linguistic contact deals with a speaker's native features being transferred into their second language (L2), the opposite direction has also been confirmed, i.e., speakers can adopt in their first language (L1) the features of a language or dialect they are in contact with. This latter type of linguistic transfer, from the native language or dialect to a second language or dialect, can take place in different social settings, such as bilingual communities (see Colantoni & Gurlekian, 2004;Elordieta, 2003Elordieta, , 2006Elordieta & Calleja, 2005;Elordieta & Irurtzun, 2012Elordieta & Romera, in press;Mennen, 2004Mennen, , 2015Muntendam & Torreira, 2016;O'Rourke, 2005;Romera & Elordieta, 2013;Simonet, 2008Simonet, , 2011among others). As Romera and Elordieta (2013) argue, most of the purported cases of adoption of L2 features in L1 are cases of what they call indirect transfer.…”