The role of prosodic structure in the L2 acquisition of Spanish stop lenition

Abstract

This study tests the hypothesis that late first-language English / second-language Spanish learners (L1 English / L2 Spanish learners) acquire spirantization in stages according to the prosodic hierarchy (Zampini, 1997, 1998). In Spanish, voiced stops [b d g] surface after a pause or nasal stop, and continuants [β̞ ð̞ ɣ̞] surface postvocalically, among other contexts. We adopt an Optimality Theoretic analysis of the phenomenon that assumes that postvocalic continuants surface due to the ranking of prosodic positional faithfulness constraints below a markedness constraint that prohibits stops in postvocalic position. L1 English speakers are presumed to start with a ranking in which prosodic positional faithfulness outranks the markedness constraint. In line with the Gradual Learning Algorithm (Boersma and Hayes, 2001), gradual demotion of the relevant faithfulness constraints is predicted in L2 Spanish, extending the prosodic domain until continuants surface postvocalically across domains. A cross-section of 44 L1 English / L2 Spanish learners and a control group ( n = 5) completed a recitation task, and data were analysed acoustically for manner of articulation and degree of constriction. Results partially align with Zampini’s impressionistic data: Learners first produce underlying stops as postvocalic approximants at the onset of the syllable (word-medial position), followed by the onset of the prosodic word (word-initial position). Unlike Zampini’s findings, there is no evidence for an intermediate stage of acquisition across the boundary of a word and its clitic. Advanced L2 learners produce continuants in postvocalic position at all applicable prosodic levels, which we take to indicate acquisition of the target ranking. We also examined whether learners’ postvocalic continuants are lenited to the same degree as the control group, and whether degree of lenition changes across development. The difference in degree of lenition between controls and learners lessens at higher levels of the prosodic hierarchy as acquisition progresses, and several advanced learners produce target-like segments across prosodic levels.

Type of early bilingualism and its effect on the acoustic realization of allophonic variants: Early sequential and simultaneous bilinguals

“…In contrast to English, this lenition rule is a fully conventionalized process systematically found in all speech styles in Spanish, including careful reading style (Hualde et al, 2011). Recent L2 research has investigated the ability of English speakers to produce the voiced approximants focusing on the acoustic realization of late L2 Spanish learners with different levels of instruction (Alvord & Christiansen, 2012; Cabrelli Amaro, 2017; Face & Menke, 2009; Rogers & Alvord, 2014; Shea & Curtin, 2010; Zampini, 1994) and Spanish heritage speakers (Rao, 2014, 2015). However, we still do not know if there are differences between early sequential and simultaneous bilinguals with respect to their acoustic realization of language-specific phonological processes in the heritage language, such as the distribution of voiced stops and spirants in Spanish.…”

Acquisition of L2 Japanese WH questions: Evidence of phonological contiguity and non-shallow structures

“…The field of second language acquisition (SLA) looks to probe the properties of the grammars of second language (L2) learners. While there is much research that investigates a single module such as phonology (Archibald, 1998; Cabrelli Amaro, 2017) or syntax (White, 2003), there has also been much written on the grammatical interfaces (Goad and White, 2004; Montrul, 2011; Sorace, 2011; White, 2011). Considerable attention has been given to the morphology/syntax interface (Franceschina, 2001), and also to the syntax–pragmatics interface (Sorace and Filiaci, 2006), but there has been less attention given to the phonology–syntax interface (see Fodor, 2002) in SLA, though, of course, it has been addressed in the theoretical literature (Elfner, 2015).…”