Spanish phonology

Main article: Spanish language

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This article is about the phonology of the Spanish language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants (for details, see the articles on History of the Spanish language and Spanish dialects and varieties).

Spanish has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish phonemes (written in slashes / /) and corresponding allophones (written in brackets [ ]).

Consonants

Table of consonant phonemes of Spanish

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal		Velar
Nasal	m			n	ɲ
Stop	p   b		t   d		tʃ	ʝ	k   g
Fricative		f	θ	s			x
Trill				r
Tap				ɾ
Lateral				l	ʎ

Phonetic notes

/t/ and /d/ are laminal denti-alveolar.

/b/, /d/, and /g/ are approximants ([β̞], [ð̞], [ɣ˕]; hereafter represented without the undertack) in all places except after a pause, a nasal consonant or, in the case of /d/, after a lateral consonant; in such contexts they are voiced plosives.

/ʝ/ is an approximant in all contexts except after a nasal, /l/, or a pause where it is an affricate ([ɟʝ]). The approximant allophone differs from non-syllabic /i/ in a number of ways; it has a lower F2 amplitude, is longer, can only appear in the syllable onset (where non-syllabic /i/ never appears), is a palatal fricative in emphatic pronunciations, and is unspecified for rounding (e.g. viuda [ˈbjuða] 'widow' vs ayuda [aˈʝʷuða] 'help').

/θ/ and /s/ become voiced [ð] and [z] respectively, before voiced consonants as in jazmín ('Jasmine') [xaðˈmĩn] and rasgo ('feature') [ˈrazɣo̞]. While /s/ becomes dental before denti-alveolar consonants, /θ/ remains interdental in all contexts. /x/ may be pronounced uvular before /u/ (including when /u/ is in the syllable onset as [w]).

/f/ becomes voiced [v] before voiced consonants as in Dafne ('Daphne') ['davˈne], rosbif de ternera [roz'biv de teɾ'neɾa] ('veal roast beef')

Archiphonemes

Although there are only three nasal phonemes and two lateral ones, /l/ and the nasal consonants assimilate to the place of articulation of following consonants even across word boundaries; because nasals are only contrastive before vowels (word-finally only /n/ appears) noncontrastive nasal realizations elsewhere are considered part of a nasal archiphoneme; assimilatory allophones are shown in the following table:

nasal			lateral
word	IPA	gloss	word	IPA	gloss
ánfora	[ˈaɱfo̞ɾa]	'amphora'
encía	[e̞n̟ˈθia]	'gum'	alzar	[al̟ˈθaɾ]	'to raise'
antes	[ˈan̪t̪e̞s]	'before'	alto	[ˈal̪t̪o̞]	'tall'
ancha	[ˈanʲtʃa]	'wide'	colcha	[ˈko̞lʲtʃa]	'quilt'
cónyuge	[ˈko̞ɲɟʝuxe̞]	'spouse'
rincón	[riŋˈko̞n]	'corner'
enjuto	[e̞ɴˈχuto̞]	'dry'

Likewise, the alveolar trill and alveolar tap contrast intervocalically but are otherwise in complementary distribution with the trill appearing in the word onset and after /l/, /n/, or /s/ and the tap being usual elsewhere.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e̞		o̞
Open		ä

Spanish has five vowels /i/ /e̞/ /ä/ /o̞/ /u/. Each occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables:

Spanish /e̞/ and /o̞/ becomes either [ɛ] and [ɔ] or [e] and [o] depending on the position of these vowels in a word. This sounds are allophones, in Spanish they are not distinguished as in Italian or Catalan where these sounds can be distinguished.

In Spanish the vowels "e" and "o" can become /i/ and /u/, respectively, in the relaxed pronounciation of a hiatus. Almohada ('Pillow') /al'muada/ and línea ('Line') /'linia/.

stressed		unstressed
piso	'I step'	pisó	's/he stepped
peso	'I weigh'	pesó	's/he weighed'
paso	'I pass'	pasó	's/he passed'
poso	'I pose'	posó	's/he posed'
pujo	'I bid' (present tense)	pujó	's/he bid' (past tense)

Spanish diphthongs

IPA	Example	Meaning
Falling
/ei/	rey	king
/ai/	aire	air
/oi/	hoy	today
/eu/	neutro	neutral
/au/	pausa	break
/ou/	bou	seine fishing
Rising
/je/	tierra	earth
/ja/	hacia	towards
/jo/	radio	radio
/ju/	viuda	widow
/wi/	fuimos	we went
/we/	fuego	fire
/wa/	cuadro	picture
/wo/	cuota	quota

Spanish also has six falling diphthongs and eight rising diphthongs. In addition, during fast speech, sequences of vowels in hiatus become diphthongs wherein one becomes non-syllabic (unless they are the same vowel, in which case they fuse together) as in poeta [ˈpo̯eta] ('poet') and maestro [ˈmae̯stɾo] ('teacher'). Spanish also possesses triphthongs like /wei/ and, in dialects that use a second person plural conjugation, /jai/, /jei/, and /wai/ (e.g. buey, 'ox'; cambiáis, 'you change'; cambiéis, '(that) you may change'; and averiguáis, 'you ascertain').

Phonetic nasalization occurs for vowels occurring between nasal consonants or when preceding a syllable final nasal.

An epenthetic [e̞] is inserted before word-initial /s/ + consonant. e.g escribir ('to write') but transcribir ('to transcribe').

Stress

Spanish is a syllable-timed language, so each syllable has the same duration regardless of stress. Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word, with some rare exceptions at the fourth last. The tendencies of stress assignment are as follows:

• In words ending in vowels and /s/, stress most often falls on the penultimate syllable.
• In words ending in all other consonants, the stress more often falls on the ultimate syllable.
• Preantepenultimate stress occurs rarely and only in words like guardándoselos ('saving them for him/her') where a clitic follows certain verbal forms.

In addition to the many exceptions to these tendencies, there are numerous minimal pairs which contrast solely on stress such as sábana ('sheet') and sabana ('savannah'), as well as límite ('boundary'), limite ('[that] he/she limits') and limité ('I limited').

Phonological stress may be marked orthographically with an acute accent (ácido, distinción, etc). This is done according to the mandatory stress rules of Spanish orthography which are similar to the tendencies above (differing with words like distinción) and are defined so as to unequivocally indicate where the stress lies in a given written word. An acute accent may also be used to differentiate homophones (such as té for 'tea' and te for 'you').

Phonotactics

Spanish syllable structure is (C)(L|R)V(C)(S) with a maximal example being the first syllable of transporte.

Dialectal variation

One notable dialectal feature is the merging of /ʝ/ and /ʎ/ into one phoneme (yeísmo); in metropolitan areas of the Iberian Peninsula, /ʎ/ simply loses its laterality and in some South American countries, they are both realized as [ʒ]. Other dialectal variations include /x/ → [h] and the merging of /θ/ and /s/ in areas of Andalusia, Canary Islands, and Latin America (see ceceo for more information).

/s/ is also the subject of some variation; in most of Spain, it is apicoalveolar while it is laminal in Andalusia, Canary Islands, and Latin America. [s] may become the approximant [ɹ] before a rhotic (israelita: [iɹrae̞ˈlit̪a]). In many places it debuccalizes to [h] in final position (niños), or before another consonant (fósforo) - in other words, the change occurs in the coda position in a syllable. In the Colombian Caribe, gemination may occur before /k/ or /f/ consonants (pescado: [pe̞ˈkːaðo̞] or [pe̞ˈkːao̞], fósforo: [ˈfo̞fːo̞ro̞]).

From an autosegmental point of view, the /s/ phoneme in Madrid is defined only by its voiceless and fricative features. This means that the point of articulation is not defined and is determined from the sounds following it in the word or sentence. Thus in Madrid the following realizations are found: /peskado/ → [pe̞xkao̞] and /fosforo/ → [fo̞fːo̞ro̞]). In parts of southern Spain, the only feature defined for /s/ appears to be voiceless; it may lose its oral articulation entirely to become [h]) or even a geminate with the following consonant ([o̞βihpo̞] or [o̞βipːo̞] from /obispo/ 'bishop').

In most of Spain and the Caribbean, /d/ is usually omitted in the past participle ending -ado (this is also true in Southern Spain for -ada and -ido). In Southern Spain, /x/ may be dropped in final position.

In colloquial Chilean speech, /ɾ/ is totally assimilated to produce gemination before /t/ (carta: [ˈkat̪ːa]), /n/ (carne: [ˈkanːe̞]) and /l/ (perla: [ˈpe̞lːa]). In the Colombian Caribe, it produces gemination before almost every consonant (barco: [ˈbakːo̞], árbol: [ˈabːo̞l], arde: [ˈad̪ːe̞], etc.), and is replaced by [ʔ] in final position (saber: [saˈβe̞ʔ]).

See also

• History of the Spanish language
• List of phonetics topics
• Spanish dialects and varieties
• Spanish vocabulary

References

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