# More on Sibilant Devoicing in Spanish Diachrony: An Initial Phonetic Approach
## 1 Introduction
### Scope and Hypotheses  
In order to verify whether these phonetically based explanations account for historical sibilant devoicing, we assume that synchronic variation is related to or parallels diachronic sound change ([PERSON], 2003, p. 672; [PERSON], 2004 or [PERSON], 2012, p. 322), so that the instrumental study of speech can be profitably used for a better understanding of linguistic changes. The main problem in this perspective is how to deal with phonological systems which have disappeared through language evolution. This seems to be the case for Spanish sibilants, at least if we focus on standard Spanish. [PERSON] (2004) argues that comparative grammar, dialectology or even the study of language acquisition are useful in these cases: diachronic studies should essentially be multidisciplinary. [PERSON] (1995) is an example of this. In this research the author checks the perceptive aspects of the sibilant devoicing process under examination here by manipulating the duration and intensity cues of [_I_] and [s] in two experiments, one with stimuli from Argentinian Spanish and the other from Mexican Spanish. However, the participants in these perception tasks were all Spanish speakers, whose system lacked the phonological contrast between voiced and voiceless categories.7 To avoid this problem, we decided to focus on comparative grammar instead of dialectology, since the literature points out the similarity between the Medieval Spanish sibilant system and the current Catalan sibilants ([PERSON] 1993; [PERSON] and [PERSON] 2006; [PERSON] and [PERSON] 2014). Footnote 7: [[https://www.delforge.de/](https://www.delforge.de/)]([https://www.delforge.de/](https://www.delforge.de/))  
Standard Catalan displays four pairs of sibilant consonants: two fricative pairs (alveolar/s, z/and alveopalatal/_I_, _3/_) and two affricate pairs (dentoalveolar/_I_, _d_Z_/8 and palatal/_I_, _d_S_/) which contrast in word-initial and medial onset position.9 They present dialectal variation at the phonetic level. Importantly for the current study, devoicing phenomena have also been detected, basically affecting affricates (in Central Valencian Catalan and in the Southern Catalonia variety) but also fricatives ([PERSON] 1998, pp. 31, 64; [PERSON] 2005, pp. 11-22; [PERSON] 2014, pp. 239-45, 251-53, 263-64; see also [PERSON] and [PERSON] 2014, p. 111; [PERSON] et al. 2015, p. 246).10 To achieve a better fit to the characteristics of Medieval Spanish and avoid dialect effects regarding devoicing, this work will draw its attention to Central Catalan from Girona and Majorcan Catalan. Footnote 7: [[https://www.delforge.de/](https://www.delforge.de/)]([https://www.delforge.de/](https://www.delforge.de/))  
In short, the core purpose of this paper is to examine in greater depth the hypothesis in [PERSON] (1993) and [PERSON] (1995, 1997), who stated that sibilant devoicing in Early Modern Spanish can be accounted for in terms of phonetic aspects of speech. As commented on before, we applied an experimental approach to a close Ibero-Romance language, Catalan, to cover the two parts of the process: production and perception. Two different experiments are thus proposed. The first one is an acoustic study that will allow us to describe the relevant features regarding voicing of each voiced-voiceless contrastive pair. In this sense, it will be necessary to determine if sibilant production is homogeneous or if there is variation ([PERSON] 1978). The second experiment is an identification task designed to test the parsing of different stimuli (voiced, partly devoiced or voiceless) to voiced or voiceless categories. This will allow us to check whether devoicing can be detected perceptually and, if so, to what extent this occurs in each of the contrasting sibilant pairs. According to the literature, we expect sibilant production to display variation, so that sibilant allophones will present different degrees of voicing, which will be measurable by means of duration, intensity and vocal-fold activity.