Caribbean Spanish

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

• Intervocalic /d/ is often deleted (at times causing diphthongs): cansado [kãnˈsao̞] ('tired'), nada [ˈna] ('nothing'), and perdido [pe̞rˈð̞i.o̞] ('lost').
• /x/ is aspirated to glottal [h]
• /r/ is often pronounced [x] and aspirated, especially in Puerto Rico: e.g. revolución [xʰe̞β̞o̞luˈsjõ̞ŋ] ('revolution')
• Word-final /n/ is realized as velar [ŋ], meaning [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before velar consonants and word-final position; e.g. consideran [kõ̞nsiˈð̞e̞ɾãŋ] ('they consider') and Teherán [t̪e̞(e̞)ˈɾãŋ] ('Tehran'); in Venezuela, syllable-final /n/-velarisation, or /n/-assimilation prevails: ambientación ("atmosphere") becomes either [ãŋbjẽ̞ŋt̪aˈsjõ̞ŋ] or [ãbjẽ̞t̪aˈsjõ̞].
• The second-person subject pronouns—tú (or vos in Central America) and usted—are used more frequently than in other varieties of Spanish, contrary to the general Spanish tendency to omit them when meaning is clear from the context (see Pro-drop language). Thus, tú estás hablando instead of estás hablando. This tendency is strongest in the island countries and, on the mainland, in Nicaragua, where voseo (rather than the use of tú for the second person singular familiar) is predominant.
• So-called "wh-questions", which in standard Spanish are marked by subject/verb inversion, often appear without that inversion in Caribbean Spanish. Thus "¿Qué tú quieres?" for standard "¿Qué quieres (tú)?" ("What do you want?").^[5][6]

See also

• Cuban Spanish
• Dominican Spanish
• Puerto Rican Spanish
• Languages of the Caribbean

References

1. Guitart (1997:515, 517)
2. Guitart (1997:515)
3. Guitart (1997:515, 517–518)
4. Guitart (1997:518, 527), citing Boyd-Bowman (1975) and Labov (1994:595)
5. Lipski (1997:61)
6. Gutiérrez-Bravo (2008:225)

Bibliography

• Boyd-Bowman, Peter (1975), "A sample of Sixteenth Century 'Caribbean' Spanish Phonology.", in Milán, William; Zamora, Juan C., Colloquium on Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, pp. 1–11 Missing |last2= in Editors list (help)
• Guitart, Jorge M. (1997), "Variability, multilectalism, and the organization of phonology in Caribbean Spanish dialects", in Martínez-Gil, Fernando; Morales-Front, Alfonso, Issues in the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages, Georgetown University Press, pp. 515–536 Missing |last2= in Editors list (help)
• Gutiérrez-Bravo, Rodrigo (2008), "Topicalization and Preverbal Subjects in Spanish wh-interrogatives", in Bruhn de Garavito, Joyce; Valenzuela, Elena, Selected Proceedings of the 10th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla, pp. 225–236
• Labov, William (1994), Principles of Linguistic Change: Volume I: Internal Factors, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers
• Lipski, John (1977), "Preposed Subjects in Questions: Some Considerations", Hispania 60: 61–67, doi:10.2307/340393, JSTOR 340393

Further reading

• Cedergren, Henrietta (1973), The Interplay of Social and. Linguistic Factors in Panama, Cornell University
• Poplack, Shana (1979), Function and process in a variable phonology, University of Pennsylvania