An electropalatography study of nasal-trill/lateral sequences in Spanish

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 133; no. 5_Supplement; p. 3608
• Main Authors: Colantoni, Laura, Kochetov, Alexei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-05-2013
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.4806709

Trills and laterals require relatively precise articulatory and aerodynamic settings that are at least partly incompatible with setting necessary to produce nasal stops. Historically, this incompatibility has often been resolved through assimilation, deletion, or epenthesis in within-word [n+r] and [n+l] clusters (e.g., Romance [nr] > [rr] or [ndr]). It is expected that similar, yet gradient effects would be observed in across-word or hetero-morphemic sequences of nasals and liquids. This study examines the production of Spanish nasal-liquid sequences using electropalatography (EPG). Linguopalatal contact data were collected from nine native speakers of Spanish (representing three dialects) producing various utterances with nasals before /r/ and /l/ (as well as before /n/). The analysis of C1 and C2 using standard EPG indices of constriction location and degree showed that nasals had a more retracted and partly deocclusivized constriction before /r/, and a lowered tongue dorsum before both /r/ and /l/. These differences, clearly reflecting anticipatory coarticulatory effects, were similar across speakers and the three dialects, which differ in the default realization of the final nasal (alveolar or velar). The findings provide evidence for articulatory incompatibility as a source of historical development of combinations of nasals and liquids.