Lenition of voiced and, to a lesser extent, voiceless stops is widely attested in Western Romance languages. In Spanish, utterance-initial voiced stops as well as those following nasals alternate with approximants in intervocalic position. Acoustic and articulatory studies have revealed factors that condition phonetic weakening. In contrast, very little is known about stop weakening in French. In this paper, using electropalatography, we provide articulatory evidence for the lenition of /t d/ in both Spanish and French. Data obtained from seven Spanish-speaking and four French-speaking participants reveal that, in both languages, /d/ is produced with less linguopalatal contact than /t/, and these differences are strongly conditioned by the position within the utterance or word. The languages differ, however, in the degree of /d/ lenition as well as in some of the contextual conditioning factors. Overall, our results, which should be interpreted with some caution given the number of speakers and the balance of the stimuli set, show that French resembles other Romance languages in its phonetic patterns of lenition, differing mainly in the degree of weakening.
El debilitamiento de las oclusivas sonoras, y, en menor medida, el de las sordas, es un proceso frecuente en las lenguas románicas. En español, las oclusivas sonoras en posición inicial absoluta y después de nasal alternan con aproximantes en posición intervocálica. Aunque se han realizado estudios articulatorios y acústicos acerca del debilitamiento en español, poco se sabe acerca de los patrones de debilitamiento en francés. En este trabajo, se presenta evidencia sobre el debilitamiento de /t d/ en ambas lenguas, por medio de datos obtenidos de cuatro hablantes de francés y siete de español usando electropalatografía (EPG). Los resultados muestran que en ambas lenguas /d/ se articula con menos contacto linguo-palatal que /t/ y que las diferencias en los patrones de contacto están condicionadas por la posición en la palabra y en la frase. Ambas lenguas difieren en el grado de debilitamiento de /d/ y en algunos de los factores contextuales que lo afectan. En resumen, los resultados provenientes de esta pequeña muestra de hablantes revelan que el francés se asemeja a otras lenguas románicas en los patrones fonéticos de debilitamiento, aunque difiere en el grado de debilitamiento.
Lenition of voiced stops and, to a lesser extent, of voiceless stops is a widely attested process in Western Romance languages, both diachronically and synchronically. Of all these languages, the Spanish synchronic alternations have arguably received the most attention. In Spanish, phonologically voiced stops (see
Similar alternations are documented in Catalan (
Given the scarcity of studies on French, our first goal here is to contribute to our understanding of lenition in Romance languages by providing new data for this language and comparing the articulatory realization of /t d/ in both languages using electropalatography (EPG). Our second goal is to contextualize our findings in light of crosslinguistic patterns of consonant fortition and lenition documented in previous articulatory (
Previous acoustic and articulatory studies on lenition in Romance, based mainly on data from Spanish and Catalan, have uncovered a series of factors that favor the lenition of voiced and voiceless stops. As already mentioned, position in the phrase conditions the alternation between Spanish stops and approximants.
Whereas there is consensus that position in the utterance conditions lenition, mixed results have been obtained regarding the role of stress, stop place, and preceding segments. For Spanish,
Finally, the degree of lenition may also vary across dialects of the same language. For example,
The goal of the present study is to compare lenition of French and Spanish /t d/ based on EPG data collected from 11 speakers, exploring possible similarities and differences in this process between the languages. Specifically, this will be done by comparing the overall degree of contact (Q) in Spanish (Peninsular, Cuban, and Argentine) and French (Quebec and European) /t/ and /d/, examining the effect of position in the utterance (initial, medial, final) in conditioning this variation as well as of stress (pretonic & tonic (both languages); posttonic (Spanish alone)).
The data for the study come from a corpus of previously collected EPG recordings (
The target consonants /t/ and /d/ appeared in three positions in the word: word-initial, word-medial, and word-final as, for example, /d/ in the Spanish words
In terms of their stress patterns, there were three contexts in which the target consonants could appear in Spanish: pretonic, tonic, and posttonic (e.g.,
Position /Stress | Type | Items (N) | Tokens (N) | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
/t/ | /d/ | /t/ | /d/ | |||
a. | initial | single | 6 | 5 | 90 | 70 |
carrier | 6 | 5 | 282 | 209 | ||
medial | single | 12 | 12 | 163 | 139 | |
carrier | 12 | 12 | 504 | 420 | ||
final | single | 1 | 3 | 14 | 70 | |
carrier | 1 | 3 | 42 | 210 | ||
b. | pretonic | single | 3 | 2 | 48 | 28 |
carrier | 3 | 2 | 156 | 83 | ||
tonic | single | 7 | 9 | 84 | 126 | |
carrier | 7 | 9 | 264 | 378 | ||
posttonic | single | 9 | 9 | 135 | 125 | |
carrier | 9 | 9 | 408 | 378 |
Position /Stress | Type | Items (N) | Tokens (N) | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
/t/ | /d/ | /t/ | /d/ | |||
a. | initial | single | 4 | 3 | 96 | 73 |
carrier | 4 | 3 | 72 | 54 | ||
medial | single | 13 | 8 | 312 | 192 | |
carrier | 13 | 8 | 234 | 144 | ||
final | single | 1 | 3 | 24 | 71 | |
carrier | 1 | 3 | 18 | 54 | ||
b. | pretonic | single | 3 | 4 | 96 | 336 |
carrier | 3 | 4 | 72 | 252 | ||
tonic | single | 14 | 11 | 73 | 263 | |
carrier | 14 | 11 | 54 | 198 |
The recordings were made using the
The data were annotated based on the waveform and spectrogram using the
(a) a token of /t/ in Spanish
The small images at the bottom of each annotation present the point of maximum contact frames (PMC) during the annotated intervals. We can see that, at its maximum, /t/ was produced with a complete closure in the first three rows of the palate as well as substantial side contact. In contrast, there was only a partial constriction in the first few rows and reduced side contact for /d/, indicative of consonantal lenition.
Linguopalatal contact values were automatically extracted from the PMC frames. In general, lesser contact corresponds to greater lenition. As our focus is on coronal consonants, we chose to examine the amount of linguopalatal contact in the first four rows of the palate as measured by Q_a4 (Quotient of maximum activation over the anterior four rows of the palate) or
Q_a4 values were analyzed using linear mixed effects models implemented with the lme4 package (
We will begin with an overview of linguopalatal contact differences across positions/stress contexts and utterance types as well as by considering between-language differences.
Turning to the illustrative data from French speaker FR_F1 (
Overall, /d/ is characterized by slightly less contact than /t/, at least word-medially; both consonants exhibit somewhat reduced contact word-medially and word-finally compared to word-initial position. As the stress patterns in the French data align with the position categories, /t/ and /d/ in stressed syllables (non-initial positions) show overall slightly less contact.
Below we continue by presenting analyses of the data - by Type and Position, then by Type and Stress - separately for each language, followed by a comparison of French and Spanish data.
A linear mixed effects regression (LMER) model for the entire Spanish dataset revealed significant effects of Consonant, Type, Position, and significant interactions of these three factors. These results are summarized in
Effect | χ2 | Df | Pr(>χ2) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 973.18 | 1 | <.001 | *** |
Type | 149.32 | 1 | <.001 | *** |
Position | 105.73 | 2 | <.001 | *** |
C x Type | 10.38 | 1 | <.01 | ** |
C x Position | 51.77 | 2 | <.001 | *** |
Type x Position | 240.92 | 2 | <.001 | *** |
C x Type x Position | 194.39 | 2 | <.001 | *** |
C | Effect | χ2 | Df | Pr(>χ2) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
/t/ | Type | 108.31 | 1 | <.001 | *** |
Position | 21.03 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Type x Position | 8.95 | 2 | .011 | * | |
/d/ | Type | 77.09 | 1 | <.001 | *** |
Position | 90.97 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Type x Position | 332.05 | 2 | <.001 | *** |
The anterior contact for /d/ also showed significant effects of Type, Position, and the interacion of these two factors (see
As the LMER model for Consonant, Type, and Stress showed a significant 3-way interaction of the kind observed above, here we will present only the results of separate analyses by consonant, focusing on stress. The results of these are summarized in
C | Effect | χ2 | Df | Pr(>χ2) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
/t/ | Type | 110.81 | 1 | <.001 | *** |
Stress | 15.62 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Type: Stress | 3.20 | 2 | .202 | ||
/d/ | Type | 63.98 | 1 | <.001 | *** |
Stress | 23.39 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Type: Stress | 90.34 | 2 | <.001 | *** |
With /t/, anterior contact was significantly affected by Type and Stress. In terms of the latter difference, as revealed by posthoc pairwise comparisons, the amount of contact was reduced for posttonic compared to tonic position (
To examine whether there were general dialectal differences between the Argentine versus other Spanish speakers, we performed an LMER model with Dialect included as a fixed factor with two levels (Argentina, Other). The results revealed significant 3-way interactions of Dialect with Consonant and Position (
An examination of individual data revealed that all speakers were relatively consistent in their realization of /t/ across positions and utterance types. There were, however, some individual differences in the realization of /d/ in certain contexts. As can be seen in
Voiced /d/ also showed some item- or phonetic context-specific variation. While this consonant was characterized by considerable lenition in the words
To examine the potential relationship between the consonants’ anterior contact and duration, we plotted these variables by individual tokens in
To summarize, the results for the Spanish dataset showed robust between-consonant differences: voiced /d/ was characterized by much less anterior contact than voiceless /t/ (see
Turning to French, an LMER model for the entire dataset revealed significant effects of Consonant and Position (but not Type) as well as significant interactions of Consonant and Type, Consonant and Position, and Type and Position. These results are summarized in
Effect | χ2 | Df | Pr(>χ2) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 22.49 | 1 | <.001 | *** |
Type | 0.25 | 1 | 0.615 | |
Position | 38.41 | 2 | <.001 | *** |
C x Type | 4.73 | 1 | .030 | * |
C x Position | 8.49 | 2 | .014 | * |
Type x Position | 10.97 | 2 | .004 | ** |
C x Type x Position | 1.87 | 2 | .3916 |
Given these interactions, and in parallel to our Spanish analysis, we proceeded with separate analyses for each consonant.
C | Effect | χ2 | Df | Pr(>χ2) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
/t/ | Type | 4.36 | 1 | .037 | * |
Position | 9.60 | 2 | .008 | ** | |
Type x Position | 5.20 | 2 | .074 | ||
/d/ | Type | 0.51 | 1 | .475 | |
Position | 22.32 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Type x Position | 6.37 | 2 | .042 | * |
For /d/, anterior contact was affected by Position but not Type; there was also a significant Type-by-Position interaction (see
LMER models for Type and Stress for /t/ and /d/ are summarized in
C | Effect | χ2 | Df | Pr(>χ2) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
/t/ | Type | 4.37 | 1 | .037 | * |
Stress | 9.35 | 1 | .002 | ** | |
Type: Stress | 4.91 | 1 | .027 | * | |
/d/ | Type | 0.50 | 1 | .478 | |
Stress | 4.67 | 1 | .031 | * | |
Type: Stress | 0.45 | 1 | .502 |
For /t/, the model showed significant effects of Type, Stress, and their interaction. Posthoc pairwise comparisons revealed that contact was reduced in the tonic compared to the pretonic context but only in single words (
To examine dialect-specific differences, we performed an LMER model with Dialect included as a fixed factor (with two levels: France versus Quebec). The results revealed significant 3-way interactions of Dialect with Consonant and Position (
As Quebec French is characterized by affrication of stops before high front vocoids (/i/, /y/, and /j/, /ɥ/; e.g.,
An examination of the individual data revealed rather similar Type and Position variation for each of the two consonants. Among some observed (yet relatively minor) differences were the generally lower contact for FR_Q1 as well as a somewhat greater reduction of final /t/ and, especially, /d/ by the two Quebec speakers. These similarities and differences can be observed in
Finally, turning to the potential relationship between contact and duration,
Compared to Spanish, the results for French showed much subtler differences between the consonants as well as among positions and stress contexts. Some of the differences, however, were similar to those observed in Spanish. Specifically, both French /t/ and /d/ were realized with greater contact in word-initial compared to word-medial (for /t/ in single words) and word-final positions (for /d/ in both utterance types). For /t/ alone, single words exhibited greater contact than words produced in carrier sentences. Unlike Spanish, however, it was word-final rather than word-medial position where /d/ was most lenited. Also in contrast to Spanish, French showed more contact reduction in tonic compared to pretonic position. As tonic position in French coocurs with the final syllable, this indicates that word position is more important for French than stress for consonantal strength realization.
To examine differences between the two language groups, we performed an LMER model across the two datasets, with the exception of the Spanish posttonic items (as this stress condition was absent in French). The model involved fixed factors Group (Spanish and French) as well as Consonant, Position, and Type as in the language-particular analyses above. Random factors were also the same, namely, Speaker and Item.
The results revealed a 4-way significant interaction (Group * Consonant * Position * Type;
C | Effect | χ2 | Df | Pr(>χ2) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
/t/ | Group | 5.76 | 1 | 0.022 | * |
Position | 14.54 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Type | 50.00 | 1 | <.001 | *** | |
Group:Position | 0.43 | 2 | 0.808 | ||
Group:Type | 11.06 | 1 | <.001 | *** | |
Position:Type | 17.62 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Group:Position:Type | 5.71 | 2 | 0.057 | ||
/d/ | Group | 61.52 | 1 | <.001 | *** |
Position | 17.30 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Type | 60.40 | 1 | <.001 | *** | |
Group:Position | 24.81 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Group:Type | 39.12 | 1 | <.001 | *** | |
Position:Type | 114.69 | 2 | <.001 | *** | |
Group:Position:Type | 86.16 | 2 | <.001 | *** |
The first interaction was due to the significantly lower /t/ contact exhibited by Spanish speakers compared to their French counterparts in the carrier phrase condition. As shown in
Overall, these results reveal a greater lenition of stops in Spanish compared to French. The language group difference for /t/ is limited to carrier sentences, while the difference for /d/ is present in almost all utterance types and positions. The latter difference is largest word-medially and word-initially in carrier sentences - the contexts where Spanish exhibits allophonic lenition of /d/. While French does not have such an allophonic process, significant positional weakening is nonetheless observed in our data: French /d/ in word-medial and especially word-final position is characterized by much weaker contact than word-initially.
While the extrapolation of our results to French and Spanish more generally must be done with some caution given the small number of speakers and certain imbalances in the stimuli set, they nonetheless show that, overall, the degree of linguopalatal contact is greater for /t/ than for /d/ in both languages with the difference being larger in Spanish. This is unsurprising given the extensive literature documenting allophonic alternations between voiced and voiceless stops. The other salient between-language difference is the lenition hierarchy. In French, there was a relatively greater amount of decreased contact moving from initial to word-medial to word-final position for both coronal stops. That lenition affects word-initial consonants less is in keeping with
Although the two languages are similar in the overall patterns, they clearly differ in the degree of lenition of both stops, especially of /d/, which is usually deleted in intervocalic position in Spanish but not in French. Additionally, Spanish voiceless stops also show clear signs of weakening with anterior contact values that resembled those obtained for French /d/. Some differences were also observed in the degree of lenition by context as mentioned in the previous paragraph.
As concerns stress, a significant but different effect was observed in both languages (pretonic > tonic in French versus tonic > posttonic in Spanish). We observed a clear asymmetry in the degree of lenition between stressed and unstressed syllables in Spanish. Contra
Dialectal effects were observed in the Spanish and the French datasets. As concerns the former, we found differences in the degree of lenition of word-final /d/, which was larger for the Argentine speakers than for the other two participants, and in the realization of word-initial consonants, particularly in isolated words. Although our results support previous research regarding differences in the degree of lenition across Spanish varieties (
In summary, our findings provide some initial insights into French’s place on the Romance continuum of lenition. Specifically, we found evidence that French is moving in the direction of the other Romance languages, albeit at a slower pace and with a slightly different hierarchy (word-final > word-medial), which in turn is consistent with previous patterns of lenition documented in the language. This between-language difference could be due to diachronic factors. Since Latin intervocalic voiceless stops were either fricativized or deleted in French (
Some of the usual disclaimers apply to our study. We have an unbalanced number of stimuli per context and per language, and while efforts were made to control for vowel context by excluding tautosyllabic high front vowels from our stimuli, differences among stimuli existed. We believe, however, that our study constitutes a first step in providing articulatory evidence of the parallels in the weakening processes observed in these two Romance languages.
Although the number of participants is small compared to acoustic studies, it is well above the median for EPG studies, which were published in major journals between 2000 and 2019 (
Whereas the particular French dialects present in our study result from these participants having been recruited via convenience sampling, in the case of Spanish, we selected speakers of dialects that rerepresented different patterns of palatalization and consonantal weakening in nasals and post-alveolar fricative based on a series of previous studies.
Est. | SE | Df | t | Pr(>|t|) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(Intercept) | 0.85 | 0.04 | 15.20 | 22.20 | <.001 | *** |
C d | -0.14 | 0.04 | 56.19 | -3.89 | .001 | ** |
Type carrier | -0.09 | 0.02 | 2163.00 | -5.77 | <.001 | *** |
Position medial | -0.09 | 0.03 | 55.09 | -2.99 | .004 | ** |
Position final | -0.08 | 0.06 | 56.85 | -1.24 | .221 | |
C d x Type carrier | -0.32 | 0.02 | 2163.00 | -13.44 | <.001 | *** |
C d x Position medial | -0.54 | 0.04 | 56.20 | -12.39 | <.001 | *** |
C d x Position final | -0.26 | 0.08 | 56.95 | -3.36 | .001 | ** |
Type carrier x Position medial | 0.04 | 0.02 | 2163.00 | 2.01 | .045 | * |
Type carrier x Position final | 0.00 | 0.04 | 2163.00 | 0.10 | .920 | |
C d x Type carrier x Position medial | 0.39 | 0.03 | 2163.00 | 13.69 | <.001 | *** |
C d x Type carrier x Position final | 0.39 | 0.05 | 2163.00 | 7.62 | <.001 | *** |
Est. | SE | Df | t | Pr(>|t|) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(Intercept) | 0.94 | 0.04 | 7.56 | 25.26 | <.001 | *** |
C d | -0.04 | 0.04 | 31.65 | -1.17 | .251 | |
Type carrier | -0.03 | 0.02 | 1303.00 | -2.04 | .042 | * |
Position medial | -0.05 | 0.03 | 31.76 | -1.95 | .060 | . |
Position final | -0.06 | 0.05 | 31.76 | -1.23 | .227 | |
C d x Type carrier | 0.03 | 0.03 | 1303.00 | 1.05 | .294 | |
C d x Position medial | -0.05 | 0.04 | 31.68 | -1.13 | .266 | |
C d x Position final | -0.16 | 0.06 | 31.77 | -2.43 | .021 | * |
Type carrier x Position medial | 0.03 | 0.02 | 1303.00 | 1.59 | .112 | |
Type carrier x Position final | 0.02 | 0.04 | 1303.00 | 0.46 | .647 | |
C d x Type carrier x Position medial | 0.01 | 0.03 | 1303.00 | 0.25 | .804 | |
C d x Type carrier x Position final | -0.05 | 0.05 | 1303.00 | -1.07 | .286 |