The Effects of L1 English Constraints on the Acquisition of the L2 Spanish Alveopalatal Nasal

Abstract

This study examines whether L1 English/L2 Spanish learners at different proficiency levels acquire a novel L2 phoneme, the Spanish palatal nasal /ɲ/. While alveolar /n/ is part of the Spanish and English inventories, /ɲ/, which consists of a tautosyllabic palatal nasal+glide element, is not. This crosslinguistic disparity presents potential difficulty for L1 English speakers due to L1 segmental and phonotactic constraints; the closest English approximation is the heterosyllabic sequence /nj/ (e.g., “canyon” /kænjn/ ['khæn.jn], cf. Spanish cañón “canyon” /kaɲon/ [ka.'ɲon]). With these crosslinguistic differences in mind, we ask: (1a) Do L1 English learners of L2 Spanish produce acoustically distinct Spanish /n/ and /ɲ/ and (1b) Does the distinction of /n/ and /ɲ/ vary by proficiency? In the case that learners distinguish /n/ and /ɲ/, the second question investigates the acoustic quality of /ɲ/ to determine (2a) if learners' L2 representation patterns with that of an L1 Spanish representation or if learners rely on an L1 representation (here, English /nj/) and (2b) if the acoustic quality of L2 Spanish /ɲ/ varies as a function of proficiency. Beginner (n = 9) and advanced (n = 8) L1 English/L2 Spanish speakers and a comparison group of 10 L1 Spanish/L2 English speakers completed delayed repetition tasks in which disyllabic nonce words were produced in a carrier phrase. English critical items contained an intervocalic heterosyllabic /nj/ sequence (e.g., ['phan.jə]); Spanish critical items consisted of items with either intervocalic onset /ɲ/ (e.g., ['xa.ɲa]) or /n/ ['xa.na]. We measured duration and formant contours of the following vocalic portion as acoustic indices of the /n/~/ɲ/ and /ɲ/ ~/nj/ distinctions. Results show that, while L2 Spanish learners produce an acoustically distinct /n/ ~ /ɲ/ contrast even at a low level of proficiency, the beginners produce an intermediate /ɲ/ that falls acoustically between their English /nj/ and the L1 Spanish /ɲ/ while the advanced learners' Spanish /ɲ/ and English /nj/ appear to be in the process of equivalence classification. We discuss these outcomes as they relate to the robustness of L1 phonological constraints in late L2 acquisition coupled with the role of perceptual cues, functional load, and questions of intelligibility.

On segmental representations in second language phonology: A perceptual account

“…Similar “in-between” results in L2 phonology where there seems to be a considerable degree of reliance in L1 representations have already been attested, both in perception and production (e.g. Freeman et al, 2016; Stefanich and Cabrelli, 2021). It can be concluded that this perceptual pattern is consistent with the subsetting outcome (partial perceptual categories in representation), whereby the learning is described as a perceptual task without a representational task; or rather, that the representational task is still incomplete.…”

Shared or Separate Representations? The Spanish Palatal Nasal in Early Spanish/English Bilinguals

“…Data from L1 English/(late) advanced L2 Spanish learners (Stefanich and Cabrelli 2016) have shown that advanced (late) L2 Spanish learners' productions patterned together in English and Spanish modes, and that this apparent shared category did not align with baseline (L1) Spanish data nor with the baseline English data provided by beginner L2 Spanish learners. That is, learners did not appear to create a novel L2 category when producing nonce words that were presented to them auditorily as /ñ/; Stefanich and Cabrelli (2016) considered this shared intermediate representation to be a potential reflection of L2 influence on an early established L1 representation. This finding aligns with the 1 A note on notation: although category representations are often represented in the literature using brackets, we use slashes when referring to phonemic inventories and representations in the speaker's grammar.…”

Out with the old, in with the new: contrasts involving new features with acoustically salient cues are more likely to be acquired than those that redeploy L1 features

“…Archibald (2009) argues that the robustness of the acoustic cue is crucial, regardless of whether the learning operation is feature reassembly or feature acquisition. Experiments on the production of the /n/ ∼ /ñ/ contrast in Spanish by L1 English/L2 Spanish speakers suggest that both the weakness of the relevant acoustic cue as well as the functional load of the contrast are possible causes for a lack of L2 convergence (Stefanich and Cabrelli, 2021). By taking only this into account, a great deal of the variation in the results of different tests could be explained.…”