Chapter published in:
Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain
Edited by Rajiv Rao
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 28] 2020
► pp. 104–139

A preliminary, descriptive survey of rhotic and approximant fricativization in Northern Ecuadorian Andean Spanish varieties, Quichua, and Media Lengua

| University of Saskatchewan
This chapter examines acoustic data from six speech communities in the northern Andean region of Ecuador to describe variation in the Spanish rhotics /r, ɾ/ and approximants /ʎ, j/, as well as their relationship to the Quichua fricatives /ʐ, ʒ/. Data were collected from four dialects of Spanish, Imbabura Quichua, and Media Lengua, a mixed language containing Spanish lexicon and Quichua morphosyntax. Results from this preliminary, descriptive survey support claims that speakers of both urban and rural dialects of Spanish make extensive use of [ʐ] for /r/ and [ʒ] for /ʎ/, in addition to a wealth of phonetic variation. Similarly, /r/ and /ʎ/ from Spanish borrowings in Media Lengua and Quichua assimilate to [ʐ] and [ʒ], respectively, with little exception.
Keywords: Ecuadorian Spanish, Media Lengua, Quichua, fricativization
Published online: 06 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.28.05ste
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