Variation in Spanish /s/: Overview and New Perspectives

Abstract

The natural tendency for language variation, intensified by Spanish’s territorial growth, has driven sibilant changes and mergers across the Spanish-speaking world. This article aims to present an overview of the most significant processes undergone by sibilant /s/ in various Spanish-speaking areas: devoicing, weakening, aspiration, elision, and voicing. Geographically based phonetic variations, sociolinguistic factors, and Spanish language contact situations are considered in this study. The sibilant merger and its chronological development in modern Spanish, along with geographic expansion, have resulted in multiple contemporary dialectal variations. This historical lack of stability in these sounds has marked modern regional variations. Tracing and framing the sibilants’ geo-linguistic features has received much attention from scholars, resulting in sibilants being one of the most studied variables in Spanish phonetics. In this article, we provide a concise approach that offers the reader an updated sociolinguistic view of the modern cross-dialectal realizations of /s/. It is essential to study sibilant development to describe Spanish dialects, the differences between Transatlantic and Castilian varieties, and the speech features found in Spanish speaking communities in the Americas. Examining sibilance from different approaches with a representative variety of Spanish dialects as examples advances the importance of sociolinguistic phenomena to index language changes.

Phonological Differences Across Varieties of Latin American Spanish

“…Dialects spoken in the Caribbean, Central America, and regions of South America all feature a decrease in the /s/ consonant in Spanish. 17 This phonological characteristic further contributes to the rich diversity of Spanish accents across the continent.…”

“…If preserved, it might appear as either an aspirated [h] or a sibilant [s]. 19 Word-internal and word-final contexts also exhibit /s/ weakening, as seen in casta 'caste', /kás.ta/ → [káh.ta] or in los gatos 'the cats', /los.gá.tos/ → [loh.gá.toh]. 20 The number of syllables in a word determines whether the final /s/ is deleted when verbalized.…”

“…19 Word-internal and word-final contexts also exhibit /s/ weakening, as seen in casta 'caste', /kás.ta/ → [káh.ta] or in los gatos 'the cats', /los.gá.tos/ → [loh.gá.toh]. 20 The number of syllables in a word determines whether the final /s/ is deleted when verbalized. For instance, one-syllable words partially preserve the /s/ as either an aspirated /h/ or the sibilant /s/.…”

“…For instance, one-syllable words partially preserve the /s/ as either an aspirated /h/ or the sibilant /s/. 21 In multi-syllable words, dropping the /s/ is increasingly common. The choice of [h] or [s] depends on the word's phonetic context.…”

“…1 Glottalization before tonic vowels can be rendered by aspiration in the word-final prevocalic position, such as los ojos 'the eyes', /lo.so.jo/ → [lo.ʔo.jo]. 24…”