s > r: Iberian miscellanea

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
"Alan R. King" <mccay at redestb.es> wrote:
 
>Consequently I am
>surprised, and indeed puzzled, by Miguel Carrasquer's statement:
>
>>Spanish /s/ is very
>>very reluctant indeed to become voiced [it rather becomes [h] or [r]
>>than [z]], and a word like <asno> for me is always [asno], never
>>[azno].
>
>In this respect, what is no doubt special about Castilian (together with
>Basque) vis-`-vis perhaps most other Romance languages in or out of the
>Iberian Peninsula (exceptions are Galician and Romanian) is that these
 
Do you mean Roman (or C/S.Italian in general)?  Romanian certainly
has /z/ ( < *dj, usually).
 
>languages have no PHONEME /z/ (voiced sibilant), hence Castilian speakers
>do not PERCEIVE voiced preconsonantal /s/ as a "z"; it is a mere
>conditioned allophone which, in my experience, normal untrained native
>speakers are absolutely unable to perceive (just as they can't perceive the
>difference between fricative and plosive allophones of their voiced stop
>phonemes).  They say, indeed, [aZno] (with an "apical" Z in some varieties,
>naturally) for /asno/ "donkey", just as southern Basque speakers will
>normally say [eZne] for /eSne/ "milk".  (On the other hand I have heard
>[eSne] from northern Basque speakers, providing a very neat "control group"
>as far as the Basque data is concerned.)
 
Now I am pussled/nonpluzzed.  As an abnormal, trained native speaker,
I certainly *can* distinguish [s] and [z] (or apical [S] and [Z])...
 
Let's see what Navarro-Toma's (my 1926 edition, but usually valid
enough) has to say about the subject:
 
S SONORA -- Alveolar fricativa sonora: ort. <s>, fon. [z].  [...]
La <s> sonora aparece u'nicamente, en nuestra lengua en posicio'n
final de si'laba, precediendo inmediatamente a otra consonante
sonora; en cualquier otra posicio'n su presencia es anormal y
espora'dica.  Es siempre, asimismo, una articulacio'n breve y suave;
la pronunciacio'n lenta o fuerte impide su sonorizacio'n,
reapareciendo en su lugar la <s> sorda.  [...]
 
{There's my error, of course.  /asno/ is indeed [asno] pronounced in
isolation, as a dictionary entry or object of introspection.  It
becomes [azno] only in connected speech, "when I'm not watching".}
 
En el grupo <sr> (<israelita>, <los reyes>, <dos reales>), la <s> se
sonoriza como en los casos precedentes; pero la punta de la lengua,
arrastrada por la ene'rgica articulacio'n de la [r_] [r stroke-above
in the original, trilled r --mcv] siguiente, abandona la forma
caracteri'stica de la estrechez redondeada que la punta de la lengua
forma en la <s>, haciendo perder a e'sta su timbre sibilante y
articulando propiamente, en vez de [z] ordinaria y regular, una [R]
[inverted r in the original, fricative r --mcv], o sea una <r>
fricativa, $114: [IRr_a at li'tA], [lORr_E'y at s], [dO'Rr_ at ales]; otras
veces, en pronunciacio'n relativamente fuerte, la <s> se pierde por
completo, aumenta'ndose, a manera de compensacio'n, las vibraciones
de la [r_] siguiente.
 
{Rhotacism indeed.  I must have picked up my non-native pronunciation
[hr] ([initially] voiceless trill) from the speech of S/C parts,
where -s > -h in connected speech, leading to voiceless [hB], [hG],
[hm], [hn], [hl] and pre-aspirated [hp], [ht], [hk] in cases like
<las botas>, <las gallinas>, <mismo>, <asno>, <isla>, <pasta>,
<espeso>, <las casas>, as discussed by Toma's Navarro in subsequent
paragraphs.}
 
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam