Caribbean Spanish

Not to be confused with Spanish Caribbean.
Extension of the Caribbean Spanish

Caribbean Spanish (Spanish: español caribeño) is the general name of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. It closely resembles the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands and Andalusia.

More precisely, the term refers to the Spanish language as spoken in the Caribbean islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, as well as in Panama, Venezuela and the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

Characteristics

Frequently, word-final /s/ and /d/ are dropped (as in compás [kõ̞mˈpaʰ] 'beat', mitad [miˈt̪a] 'half'). Syllable-final /s/ (as well as /f/ in any context) may also be debuccalized to [h] (transcribed as [ʰ] when it may be elided): los amigos [lo̞h‿aˈmiɰo̞ʰ] ('the friends'), dos [ˈd̪o̞ʰ] ('two').[1] Similarly, syllable-final nasals and /ɾ/ (or [l]) in the infinitival morpheme may also be dropped (e.g. ven [ˈbẽ̞ⁿ] 'come', comer [ko̞ˈme̞ˡ] 'to eat');[2] the dropping of final nasals doesn't result in further neutralization compared to other dialects since the nasalization of the vowel is maintained. Several neutralizations also occur in the syllable coda. The liquids /l/ and /ɾ/ may neutralize to [j] (e.g. Cibaeño Dominican celda/cerda [ˈse̞jð̞a] 'cell'/'bristle'), [l] (e.g. alma/arma [ˈalma] 'soul'/'weapon', comer [ko̞ˈme̞ˡ] 'to eat'), or as complete regressive assimilation (e.g. pulga/purga [ˈpuɡːa] 'flea'/'purge').[2]

These deletions and neutralizations show variability in their occurrence, even with the same speaker in the same utterance, implying that nondeleted forms exist in the underlying structure.[3] This is not to say that these dialects are on the path to eliminating coda consonants, since these processes have existed for more than four centuries in these dialects.[4] Guitart (1997) argues that this is the result of speakers acquiring multiple phonological systems with uneven control similar to that of second language learners.

Other features include

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading

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