New Perspectives On Automatic And Morphophonological Alternations: Harmonic Processes In Two Peninsular Varieties Of Spanish

Farrah Neumann,Matthew Kanwit

doi:10.7557/1.7.1.4150

Abstract

The present study investigated vowel harmony (VH) in two varieties of Peninsular Spanish - Eastern Andalusian and Montañes. Despite both varieties exhibiting VH, the triggers and targets for each variety result in metaphonic alternations that are quite distinct. Although previous research has extensively documented the VH of Andalusia and Montañes, no study has yet systematically compared the two using a singular metric for determining automatic (i.e., phonological) and morphophonological alternations.To address these questions, VH in each variety is described in detail and then classified as either an automatic or morphophonological alternation according to the following eight criteria indicated in Haspelmath and Sims (2010): phonological versus morphological or lexical conditioning, phonetic coherency, phonetic distance, restriction to derived environments, extension to loanwords, sensitivity to speech-style, creation of new segments, and restriction to the word level. In order to gain a more compete understanding of the morphology-phonology interface in Spanish, we explore similarities and differences in the VH of Eastern Andalusia and of the north of Spain. We seek to determine if VH in each region is more characteristic of automatic or morphophonological alternations.An in-depth analysis of the VH in each variety is revealed that a binary classification was less appropriate than viewing these alternations on a continuum. The nuanced representation of these alternations on a continuum is a unique contribution to the literature on Spanish VH and provides a fresh perspective on the nature of VH alternations in Peninsular Spanish.

Highlights

The present study1 is an investigation of two differential forms of harmonic processes, vowel harmony (VH) and metaphony, in two varieties of Peninsular Spanish – that of Eastern Andalusian, spoken in the south of Spain and Jaén in particular, and Montañes, spoken in Cantabria in the north
The relationship is best represented on a nuanced continuum, with the two Eastern Andalusian harmonic processes falling on the ends of the continuum and the Montañes VH processes falling between these two extremes
Due to the data source of the present investigation, the application of loanwords to centralization and both Eastern Andalusian processes could not be considered in the analysis, since such borrowings were absent from the existing body of work

Summary

Introduction

The present study is an investigation of two differential forms of harmonic processes, vowel harmony (VH) and metaphony, in two varieties of Peninsular Spanish – that of Eastern Andalusian, spoken in the south of Spain and Jaén in particular, and Montañes, spoken in Cantabria in the north. 3.1 The automatic versus morphophonological nature of Montañes VH Similar to the two Eastern Andalusian Harmonic Processes, the characteristics that are shared between centralization and Height Harmony in Montañes will be discussed together, followed by the criteria for which they differ. Both centralization and Height Harmony involve segments that are phonetically close. Though there is not enough data in the previous literature to comment on the application of centralization to loanwords, McCarthy (1984) notes that Height Harmony does not apply to loanwords, again pointing to a morphophonological alternation Taking these criteria into consideration holistically reveals that the distinction between automatic and morphophonological alternations in Montañes is even less delineated than in Eastern Andalusia.

Discussion

Conclusion