29.4161, Review: Spanish; Phonetics; Phonology: Hualde (2013)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-4161. Thu Oct 25 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.4161, Review: Spanish; Phonetics; Phonology: Hualde (2013)

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Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2018 15:50:04
From: Benjamin Schmeiser [schmeis at ilstu.edu]
Subject: Los sonidos del español

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-4160.html

AUTHOR: José Ignacio Hualde
TITLE: Los sonidos del español
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: Benjamin Schmeiser, Illinois State University

SUMMARY

In 2005, José Ignacio Hualde wrote the successful The Sounds of Spanish, and
since then, a Spanish edition of this textbook had been long-awaited and
highly-anticipated. The textbook under review, Los sonidos del español, is the
Spanish edition, written by the same author. The textbook strikes a balance
between being detailed and informative, yet easily accessible to students in
Spanish phonetics and phonology; undergraduate students with basic knowledge
of phonetic and phonological components will find this textbook valuable, as
will graduate students. In short, it is a superb edition and the author should
be commended for his work. 

The textbook commences with a table of contents, lists of figures and tables,
a preface, a list of abbreviations and conventions, followed by the IPA chart.
Like its English counterpart, the textbook contains fourteen chapters and two
appendices. The textbook concludes with a glossary, bibliography, and index;
throughout the textbook, salient terms found in the glossary are marked in
bold. The author clarifies any linguistics term in Spanish that might be
confusing with the English equivalent listed in parentheses and in italics.

Chapters are divided by sections according to topic and conclude with a
section that contains exercises (EJERCICIOS) for the student to check
comprehension, answer questions, and complete practice exercises. Chapters do
not contain a summary; there are no highlighted questions or isolated quotes
that interrupt the reading experience and the textbook does not offer an
answer key for the exercises provided. These sections missing are not to be
seen as deficiencies; on the contrary, I prefer the uninterrupted reading
experience, followed by the exercises with no self-check answer key. 

Chapter 1 is a rather ambitious introductory chapter that dives in immediately
with an opening section on the phoneme. Hualde then discusses the relationship
between sounds and their corresponding symbols. The author offers a table (p.
8) that gives each phoneme in Spanish, its corresponding grapheme, and an
example (in both orthographic and phonemic formats). He briefly mentions two
cases of phonemic contrasts that are specific to two varieties of Spanish and
then discusses the relationship between phonology and phonetics. He addresses
some advantages and limitations of using IPA and then discusses underlying
representations, current tendencies in phonology, the notion of a Standard
Spanish, and concludes with a discussion on ‘Spanish’ vs. ‘Castilian.’ 

Chapter 2 examines consonants and vowels. In terms of the consonant inventory,
the author discusses manner of articulation, place of articulation, and
voicing. It is interesting to note that when discussing the consonant
inventory, he includes one table (Tabla 2.4) that includes the main sounds in
Spanish and then follows it up with another table (Tabla 2.5) that only
includes the consonantal phonemes in Spanish; he then offers another table
(Tabla 2.6) that now comprises the consonantal phonemes, but ‘reorganized.’ He
concludes the chapter by discussing the vowel inventory, including full vowels
and glides; for the glides, he notes that he does not differentiate between
‘semiconsonants’ and ‘semivowels,’ but rather groups them into ‘glides.’ He
finishes the chapter with a short section on dialectal differences.

Chapter 3 is a short chapter that offers an overview of acoustic phonetics as
it pertains to the main sounds in Spanish. The author shows waveforms and
spectrograms for the major natural classes (e.g. voiceless stops) in Spanish.
The chapter focuses more on obstruents, and much less on sonorants and vowels.
 

Chapter 4 turns to the syllable. The chapter is detailed and clearly written.
The author walks us through onset, nucleus, and coda positions, and includes
consonant clusters in the description. I particularly appreciate the section
on diachronic change as it pertains to the contrast between a diphthong and
hiatus. Triphthongs are described, as well as different phonological processes
that occur in vowel sequences. Finally, the chapter ends with a discussion on
the syllable as it pertains to Optimality Theory.

Chapter 5 covers the main phonological processes for Spanish. The chapter
treats neutralization of phonemic contrast, a section on the archiphoneme,
different types of assimilation, dissimilation, weakening and deletion,
strengthening, epenthesis, and concludes with a section on gestures (based on
Articulatory Phonology, Browman and Goldstein 1986, 1991, 1992). 

Chapter 6 is dedicated to a thorough overview of the vowel inventory in
phonemic, acoustic, and diachronic terms. In addition, the author includes a
section on American English vowels (and their accompanying phonetic symbols)
and then compares the vowel inventories for the two languages, American
English and Spanish. The chapter ends with a short section on dialectal
differences as concerns Spanish vowels.

Chapter 7 treats both voiced and voiceless stops. The author divides the
chapter by word position; namely, stops at the beginning of an utterance,
those in intervocalic position, and syllable-final position. Hualde again
compares the Spanish phenomena in question with English, concentrating on
aspiration in English for voiceless stops and the American English flap for
/t/ and /d/ (e.g. ‘petal’). 

Chapter 8 analyzes fricatives and affricates. The chapter begins with a short
section on Spanish affricates, and then delves into the much deeper issue of
Spanish fricatives. After a quick overview of the fricatives, the author then
deals with more specific topics, namely /s/ vs. /θ/ (and a separate section
that includes a diachronic analysis of these two and others), variation for
the voiceless velar fricative, /x/, fricatives in syllable- and word-final
positions, and aspiration of /s/. The chapter ends with an interesting
clarification on the phonemic status of /ʝ/. 

Chapter 9 is the shortest chapter in the textbook and offers a brief overview
of the Spanish nasal phonemes, followed by the place of articulation
assimilation rule for Spanish nasals. It also includes word-final nasal
pronunciation as well as dialectal variation.

Chapter 10 treats the two liquids, laterals and rhotics. The author begins
with an overview of the lateral approximant phoneme, lateral assimilation, and
then discusses the evolution of the voiced lateral palatal, /ʎ/. Pertaining to
the rhotics, the author distinguishes the two phonemes, the tap and the trill,
in articulatory terms and also shows their distribution in Spanish. He then
goes on to discuss the historical origin of the contrast between the two and
concludes the chapter with dialectal variation. 

Chapter 11 shifts gears slightly and examines morphology as it relates to
phonology. This chapter tackles some of the core morphophonological issues in
Spanish, beginning with diphthongization (e.g. diente ‘tooth’), alternations
between mid and high vowels in verb stems, as well as other alternations
occurring in verbs. The chapter goes on to discuss pluralization, articles,
and diminutives. The chapter concludes with a theoretical section that
examines morphophonological alternations within Optimality Theory.

Chapter 12 investigates stress. The author begins by showing that stress is
phonologically contrastive in Spanish. For example, número, numero, and,
numeró mean three different things (‘number’, ‘I number’, and ‘s/he (or formal
you) numbered’, respectively). Hualde then considers restrictions on stress as
well as stress properties of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. It is
refreshing to note that he also includes a separate section on grammatical
words; in this section, he discusses which words generally receive stress in
Spanish and which do not. The author continues by discussing Latin stress and
how it developed over time in Spanish. The chapter then turns to phonetic
correlates of stress, a section which contains a number of figures to provide
a visual representation of the points discussed. He clarifies the notion of
secondary stress in Spanish and then finishes the chapter with the
relationship between (and rules for) lexical stress and orthographic accent.

Chapter 13 considers intonation. The chapter begins by discussing tone and the
basic components of intonation. The author then goes on to cover simple
declaratives, differences with English with regard to nuclear accents,
non-neutral declaratives, questions, exclamatives, intonation and phrasing,
and rhythm. The chapter ends with geographical variation as it pertains to
intonation. 

Chapter 14 concludes the textbook with a general chapter on variation in
pronunciation in the Spanish-speaking world. He first treats different
geographical regions within Spain and then moves on to Latin America. 

EVALUATION

The author points out in the Preface that this textbook is not simply a
translation of the English edition. There are five differences in this
edition. First, though Hualde is listed as the sole author, another author,
Sonia Colina, is mentioned (p. iii); she contributes three sections to the
textbook, §1.81, §4.10, and §11.10.3, all of which deal with Optimality
Theory; in addition, she is credited with translating over half of the
textbook into Spanish. Second, as compared to the English edition, the order
is slightly different; in the Spanish version, the chapter on dialectal
variation is at the end of the textbook (Chapter 14), whereas it is Chapter 2
in the original version in English. Third, exercises at the end of the
chapters have been added. Fourth, the author has made the bibliography
up-to-date. Finally, though not listed in the Preface as a difference between
the two editions, I would add that Chapter 13 has an additional section on
exclamatives (§13.7 Exclamativas) that is not present in the English version.

There are many strengths to this edition, however, I will concentrate on six.
First, for those of us that teach in the target language, a Spanish edition of
this textbook is a welcomed surprise. The Sounds of Spanish has been a staple
textbook in Spanish phonetics courses since it came out in 2005. That said,
many of us opted to use other textbooks because they were written in Spanish.
Now that there is a Spanish edition, professors who teach in the target
language have another option for the textbook used. Second, Hualde is an
accomplished author, a tireless researcher, and deservedly one of the biggest
names in Spanish Linguistics. He knows how to explain the core issues as well
as compare them to (American) English. Third, Hualde goes to great lengths in
this textbook to include diachronic descriptions of many issues about which
students are curious; the historical component in this textbook is
interesting, concise, and accessible to students. Fourth, I am particularly
appreciative of his description in Chapter 12 of grammatical words regarding
stress. For a phonetics course in which intermediate-to-advanced phonetic
transcription of utterances will take place, students will need to know which
words are generally stressed in an utterance and which are not. Hualde, along
with an author of a different textbook, Carlos-Eduardo Piñeros (2008), should
be commended for including such a section. Fifth, I much prefer the chapter on
dialectal variation at the end of the textbook; in the English edition, I find
it odd that students are exposed to dialectal variation before they are
exposed to basic components of Spanish phonetics and phonology; in the current
edition, the chapter is now a perfect way to end the textbook, given that the
students’ vocabulary and knowledge of the subject is so much more advanced by
that point. Finally, the textbook is an impressive translation and is
exceptionally well-edited (I only noticed one minor error; the /g/ is not in
bold in the title for §3.4 on p. 50). 

I can say that there are no glaring weaknesses in this textbook, however, if I
had to note any limitations, I would mention four (minor) points. First, in
Chapter 3 (on acoustic properties), there is not enough content dedicated to
vowels or sonorants; in addition, the exercise section (EJERCISIOS) only
contains four exercises. Given that many of our students have not had
extensive practice with acoustic phonetics, more exercises and content need to
be included in this chapter. Second, though I certainly appreciate the three
sections on Optimality Theory written by Sonia Colina, I wonder if these
sections might fit better in the textbook combined in a separate chapter; I
would have preferred a discussion in Optimality Theory about different topics
in its own chapter. Third, though this is admittedly a personal preference, I
am not sure a discussion in Chapter 5 of an archiphoneme is needed. Finally,
in Chapter 7, the author could have elaborated more on the lack of lenition
for voiced stops by native English speakers as well as emphasized more how
(and when) they should produce fricativization instead of a stop. 

REFERENCES

Browman, Catherine & Louis Goldstein. 1986. Towards an articulatory phonology.
Phonology Yearbook 3. 219-252.

----------. 1991. Gestural structures: Distinctiveness, phonological
processes, and historical change. In Ignatius G. Mattingly & Michael
Studdert-Kennedy (eds.), Modularity and the motor theory of speech perception,
313–338. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.

----------. 1992. Articulatory phonology: An overview. Phonetica 49. 155–180.

Piñeros, Carlos-Eduardo. 2008. Estructura de los sonidos del español. Pearson
Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.


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