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Article: Syllable-initial /s/ in Traditional New Mexican Spanish: linguistic factors favoring reduction ahina.(Report)
- Article from:
- Southwest Journal of Linguistics
- Article date:
- December 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Linguistic Association of the Southwest. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ABSTRACT. This study presents results of the first large-scale (N = 5633), empirical analysis of syllable-initial /s/ reduction in TRADITIONAL NEW MEXICAN SPANISH. The variable aspiration and deletion of syllable-initial /s/, occurring in approximately a third of the lexical types and a quarter of the tokens analyzed, is found in word-initial position (Hi, henor Si, SENOR) and in word-medial position (ahina ASINA). Long considered a phonological trait characteristic of the Spanish of New Mexico (e.g. Espinosa 1909), to date little is known about the variable realizations of /s/ in syllable-initial position. Linguistic factors such as phonological environment, prosody and ...