Preliminary Evidence for IncompleteNeutralization of Coda Liquids in Puerto Rican Spanish

The term ‘incomplete neutralization’ refers to a phenomenon in which speakers produce small differences in the articulation of words which, based on phonological processes of positional neutralization, would be expected to be homophones (Warner, Jongman, Sereno & Kemps 2004). Interestingly, these phonemic differences are also perceptible; that is, listeners may make use of them in word-identification (e.g. Port & O’Dell 1985, Warner et al. 2004). The phonetic difference between sounds that are incompletely neutralized is much smaller than that between their corresponding phonemes in other positions, in which they are not supposed to neutralize, but is still significant. According to Warner et al. (2004:252) this “has implications for phonological theory because it runs contrary to the idea of categorical distinctions among segments. ” The most studied case of incomplete neutralization is final devoicing, which is a phenomenon in which /d/ and /t/ are (nearly) merged in word-final position. This occurs in languages such as German, Polish, Dutch, and Catalan (CharlesLuce 1985, 1993, Port & O’Dell 1985, Slowiaczek & Dinnsen 1985, Port & Crawford 1989, Warner et al. 2004, among many others). Incomplete neutralization effects may be attributable to differences in the words’ underlying forms, their orthographic configuration, and/or the speech style in which they are produced (e.g. Port & Crawford 1989, Warner et al. 2004). Puerto Rican Spanish is usually described in the literature as one of the Caribbean Spanish dialects that neutralizes the liquids /r/ and /l/ in post-nuclear position (e.g. /arma/ [alma] ‘weapon’, /alma/ [alma] ‘soul’; Navarro Tomas 1948 [1974], Lopez-Morales 1983, Lipski 1994, Ramos-Pellicia 2004). The two Spanish rhotic phonemes, the trill and the tap, are neutralized in syllable-coda position in all varieties. In most cases, they are neutralized as a tap, even though a trill is optional in emphatic speech for speakers of some dialects. Puerto Rican Spanish goes a step further in also neutralizing the contrast between the rhotic (a tap, in most dialects) and the lateral. Coda liquid neutralization, however, seems to affect /r/ more frequently than /l/, that is, ‘lateralized’ realizations of /r/ are more common than ‘rhoticized’ realizations of /l/ (Lipski 1994). Navarro Tomas (1974) observed considerable regional variation with regards to this phonological neutralization process. Lipski (1994), almost fifty years later, affirmed that the neutralization of liquids in coda position is now socially, rather than regionally, indexed. In a groundbreaking study, Navarro Tomas (1974) collected data from 43 speakers from different locations in Puerto Rico. He reported that neutralization of coda /r/ and /l/ to [r] was almost as common as neutralization to [l] (52.5% versus 41% respectively), so that both etymological phonemes could variably receive a rhotic or lateral pronunciation. More recently, Lopez Morales (1983) examined the speech of a group of subjects from the San Juan metropolitan area. Lopez Morales, based on his auditory-impressionistic analysis, described the use of four variants: (i) fricatives – including approximant realizations with no occlusion and different constriction degrees (45.6%); (ii) laterals – including a few ‘mixed’ sounds in which the lateral element is salient (34.6%); (iii) taps (14%); and (iv) elided or deleted liquids (5.6%). Regarding the lateralization of coda /r/, Lopez Morales’ results