Microvariation in Accentual Alignment in Basque Spanish

This paper presents patterns of accentual alignment in two varieties of Spanish spoken in the Basque Country: Lekeitio Spanish (LS), with speakers whose other native language is Lekeitio Basque (LB); and Vitoria Spanish (VS), with monolingual speakers of Spanish from the city of Vitoria. These patterns are compared to those of Madrid Spanish (MS), compare Face (2002). In LS, accents are realized as pitch rises rather than falls, like in MS and unlike in LB, but peaks are aligned before the offset of the accented syllable, unlike in MS and like in LB. At the end of the subject phrase, peaks display later alignment, like in MS. Thus, LS displays mixed properties of Basque and Spanish intonation. In VS, stress is also realized as a tonal rise, with peaks aligned after the offset of the accented syllable, like in other varieties of Spanish and unlike LS. The low tone target is aligned before the onset of the stressed syllable, earlier than in LS and MS. The continuum of tonal target alignment is observed in LS, VS, and MS, and the difficulties in identifying a “starred” tone lead to a discussion of the suitability of the starred tone notation.

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