More on dental fricatives

[Larry Trask]

Given our recent discussion of dental fricatives in English,
I'm hoping it will be interesting to mention a curious fact
about dental fricatives in Basque.

But first a word about Castilian Spanish.  As is well known,
Castilian in the north of Spain -- the only variety relevant here --
has a phonemic contrast between a voiceless apico-alveolar
fricative, noted <s>, and a voiceless dental fricative, noted
<z> in general but <c> before a front vowel.  There are minimal
pairs like <casa> 'house' and <caza> '(a) hunt'.

Basque has no dental fricatives, but it does have an unusual
contrast between two voiceless alveolar fricatives: an apical,
noted <s>, and a laminal, noted <z>.  There are minimal pairs,
like <su> 'fire' and <zu> 'you', or like <ikusi> 'see' and
<ikuzi> 'wash'.

Traditionally, and still today, in borrowings from Castilian,
Basque takes over Castilian <s> as its apical <s>, and Castilian
<z> as its laminal <z>.  Examples: Cast. <sastre> 'tailor' > Bq.
<sastre>; Cast. <clase> 'class' > Bq. <klase>; Cast. <cine> 'cinema'
> Bq. <zine>; Cast. <arroz> 'rice' > Bq. <arroz>; Cast. <socialista>
'socialist' > Bq. <sozialista>.  Castilian <z> is never borrowed
into Basque as a dental fricative, even by speakers who are fully
fluent in Castilian.

Now, northern Castilian has another well-known feature: word-final /d/
is pronounced as a voiceless dental fricative, theta.  Words like
<Madrid> 'Madrid' and <red> 'net' are thus pronounced in the north
with final theta.  Few of these words were borrowed into Basque in
the past.  When they were borrowed, Basque, which tolerates no
word-final voiced plosives, did interesting things to them.  For
example, 'Madrid' is in Basque <Madril>, with a legal final /l/.

But today Castilian has a number of acronyms, and some of these
acronyms end in the letter D.  An example is <UNED>, which is the
Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia.  Naturally, northerners
pronounce these too with final theta.

But now comes the interesting bit.  When these acronyms are used
in Basque, they are frequently pronounced with final theta!

So, even though Castilian theta is never taken into Basque as a
dental fricative, which Basque does not have, Castilian word-final
/d/, which is locally a phonetic theta, is taken into Basque as
a dental fricative.

This is a pretty little phonological problem, don't you think?

The observation was made by J. I. Hualde, who reports it in an
article in Folia Linguistica 27 (1993).

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)