Lateralization in US Caribbean Spanish Exploring Claims of Invariance and Complete Neutralization

Abstract

This exploratory study examines rhotic production by Caribbean Spanish speakers in the US to empirically investigate (1) claims of categorical employment of the typically variable lateralization rule and (2) whether lateralized rhotics maintain acoustic features that distinguish underlying liquid phonemes. Thirty college-aged Spanish-English bilinguals of Caribbean
descent living in the US completed a guided picture description task that elicited specific tokens (n = 48) containing coda /ɾ/ and /l/ in identical phonetic contexts. Coda /ɾ/ productions were coded categorically (in terms of the allophone produced) and acoustically (with measures of duration, formant values at static time points, and formant trajectories). Rates of lateralization were examined, and acoustic characteristics of lateralized rhotics were compared statistically to those of underlying laterals. Results suggest high rates of lateralization of coda /ɾ/ across several speakers, though little evidence
of categorical lateralization (i.e., one speaker). Additionally, at the group level, /ɾ/ and /l/ were found to maintain some significant acoustic differences in formant structure at static time points. However, at the individual level, fewer than half of speakers exhibited differences between /ɾ/ and /l/ across 10 acoustic measures. Findings are discussed in light of previous claims of potential phonological and lexical change.