Spanish phonology
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| Spanish language |
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| Names for the language History Pronunciation Dialects Writing system Grammar: |
Spanish has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish phonemes (written in slashes / /) and corresponding allophones (written in brackets [ ]).
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labio- Dental | Dental | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | ||||||||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | |||||||||||
| Fricatives | f | θ | s | ʝ | x | |||||||||
| Affricates | tʃ | |||||||||||||
| Approximants | j | |||||||||||||
| Trills | r | |||||||||||||
| Taps | ɾ | |||||||||||||
| Laterals | l | ʎ | ||||||||||||
| Phoneme | Sound | Spelling | Allophones |
| voiceless bilabial plosive | "p" (pipa) | ||
| voiced bilabial plosive | "b" (burro) or "v" (vaca) | tambor, envidia), approximant [β̞] elsewhere (nube, la bodega). In rapid speech, [β̞] can replace [b] in the initial position. After [l], there is variation among speakers. | |
| voiceless dental plosive | "t" (tomate) | ||
| voiced dental plosive | "d" (dedo) | [l], approximant [ð̞] elsewhere (nido, la deuda). In most or all of Spain it is usually omitted in the endings -ado and -ados, in Southern Spain also in the endings -ada and -adas (manadas: [maˈnaːs]), and less frequently in endings -ido and -idos. In Latin America and also in Spain it is often omitted in final position: usted = [usˈt̪e] or [usˈt̪eð̞]. In Madrid this phoneme in final position suffers devoicing, merging with /θ/. | |
| voiceless velar plosive | "c" (casa), "qu" (queso), "k" (kiosko) | ||
| voiced velar plosive | "g" (gato), "gu" (guerra). | ganga), approximant [ɰ] elsewhere (lago, la garganta). | |
| Fricatives | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| voiceless alveolar fricative | "s" (sapo) | [ɹ] before a rhotic (israelita: [iɹraeˈlit̪a]). In many places it is [h] in final position (niños), or before another consonant (fósforo) - in other words, the change occurs in the coda position in a syllable. In the Colombian Caribe produces gemination before /k/ or /f/ consonants (pescado: /peˈkːað̞o/ or /peˈkːao/, fósforo: /ˈfofːoro/). In Spain is sometimes postulated a very-lightly-voiced [z] allophone before voiced consonants (desde). From an autosegmental point of view, the /s/ phoneme is defined only by its voiceless and fricative features in Madrid. This means that the point of articulation is not defined and is determined from the sounds following it in the word or sentence. In parts of southern Spain, the only feature defined for /s/ appears to be voiceless, adjusting point and mode of articulation to the surround. This explains the observed assimilations (/peskao/: [pexkao], /fosforo/: [fofforo]) in Madrid and (/est̪os/: [eht̪oh]) in southern Spain (the [h]'s in [eht̪oh] actually represent voiceless vowels). | |
| voiceless dental fricative | "z" (zorro) or "c" (cielo) | juzgado: /xuðˈgao/ or /xuðˈgað̞o/ - not the same sound as the /d/ allophone). In other dialects it merges with /s/. | |
| voiceless labiodental fricative | "f" (faro) | ||
| voiceless velar fricative | "j" (jarro), "g" (general). | /reloj/: [relo]) | |
| voiced palatal fricative | [ʒ], [ʤ] or [ʃ] sound. | ||
| Affricates | |||
| voiceless postalveolar affricate | show = | [ʧ] or [ʃ] pronunciations - like French /ʃ/ that has also developed from /ʧ/. | |
| Nasals | |||
| There are three nasal phonemes in most varieties of Spanish, distributed across five (or so) allophones. In general, these phonemes are distinguished only before vowels (e.g. como, cono, coño). In parts of Latin America, there are only two phonemes, as the palatal nasal /ɲ/ has dissolved into a sequence /nj/; elsewhere, these two are pronounced differently. Northern Spain Spanish tends to better preserve the phonemic distinction between nasals than Latin American Spanish, at least in careful speech. | |||
| bilabial nasal | "m" (mano) | /n/ archiphoneme álbum: [ˈalbun]; réquiem: [ˈrɛkjen] | |
| alveolar nasal | "n" (noche, anterior), "m" (compadre). | /k/ (blanco, un queso), /g/ (angustia, un gato); /x/ (enjambre, un jarro) or semiconsonant /w/ (enhuesar, un huevo, but not nuevo); [ɱ] before /f/ (enfermo, un faro); [m] before /m/ (inmerecido, un mono), /p/ (only on separate words, like in un perro), /b/ ("v", like in envolver, or "b" on separate words, like in un burro); [ɲ] before /ʝ/ (cónyuge, un yeso), /ʎ/ (conllevar, un llavero); [n̪] before /t̪/ (entrar, internacional), /d̪/ (onda, agenda). From an autosegmental point of view, /n/, at least in Spain, has no defined point of articulation, as it assimilates to the following consonant. | |
| palatal nasal | "ñ" (niño) | /nj/ (mañana: /maˈnjana/ or /maˈnʲana/). It occurs only before vowels. Before consonants it is part of the /n/ archiphoneme. | |
| Laterals | |||
| alveolar lateral approximant | "l" (largo). | ||
| palatal lateral approximant | "ll" (lluvia). | /ʒ/ and /ʤ/ have taken its place. /ʎ/ survives in areas of bilingualism with Catalan, Quechua, or other languages that have preserved this phoneme in their inventories (like some places of Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, etc). It also survives in isolated places such as Chiloé, in Chile, and in non-bilingual regions of northern Spain. In the Philippines, it is invariably pronounced /ʎ/, regardless of ethnolinguistic affiliation. | |
| Rhotics | |||
| In Spanish there are two rhotic sounds, but they are in complementary distribution except between vowels (compare caro and carro, pero and perro). The apparent distinction after /b/ is not such; it becomes a trill only in the verbs subrayar and subrogar (and of course, their derived words). | |||
| alveolar flap | "r" (loro, abrazar, ratón, enredo). | ratón: [raˈt̪on]), after /n/ (enredo: [enˈreð̞o]), /l/ (alrededor: [alreð̞eˈð̞or]), or /s/ (israelita: [iɹraeˈlit̪a], see /s/ above). (5) In Chile in colloquial speech it produces gemination before /t/ (carta: [ˈkat̪ːa]), /n/ (carne: [ˈkanːe]) and /l/ (perla: [ˈpelːa]). In the Colombian Caribe, it produces gemination before almost every consonant (barco: [ˈbakːo], árbol: [ˈabːol], arde: [ˈad̪ːe], etc.), and is replaced by [ʔ] in final position (saber: [saˈβ̞eʔ]). In Cuba and Puerto Rico it is replaced by [l] (puerco: [ˈpwelko]). | |
| alveolar trill | "rr" (cerro) | [ʒ] (arriba: [aˈʒiβ̞a]). | |
Vowels and semivowels
| Phoneme | Sound | Spelling | Allophones |
| Vowels | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| open front unrounded vowel | "a", "á" | [ɑ]. | |
| close-mid front unrounded vowel | "e", "é" | [ɛ]. | |
| close front unrounded vowel | "i", "í" | /is/ becomes [ɪ]. | |
| close-mid back rounded vowel | "o", "ó" | [ɔ]. | |
| close back rounded vowel | "u", "ú", "ü" | /us/ becomes [ʊ]. | |
| Semivowels and/or Semiconsonants | |||
| palatal approximant | "y" (muy), "i" (pieza, hierba, hierro) | mi amigo: [mjaˈmiɰo], pierna: [ˈpjerna] | |
| labio-velar approximant | cuatro, guardia), "ü" (agüero), but destruir: , not /desˈtrwir/. | tu amigo: [t̪waˈmiɰo], cuanto: /ˈkwant̪o/. It is not allowed in initial position, where an epenthetic /g/ develops; huevo: [gweβ̞o], and derived from it deshueve: [d̪esɰweβ̞e]. | |
Historical sound changes
By the 16th century the consonantal system of "Castilian" Spanish underwent the following important changes that differentiated it from such related Romance languages as Portuguese, Ladino and Catalan:
- The initial [f], which had evolved into a vacillating [h], was lost in most words (although this etymological h- has been preserved in spelling).
- The voiced bilabial fricative [β] (written u or v) merged with the bilabial occlusive [b] (written b). Contemporary Spanish letters b and v do not correspond to different phonemes, nor to medieval-Spanish ones, as the spelling has been modified to reflect the etymological distribution of b and v in Latin.
- The voiced alveolar fricative [z] (written s between vowels) merged with the voiceless [s] (written s, or ss between vowels), now written s everywhere.
- Voiced alveolar affricate [ʣ] (written z) merged with the voiceless [ʦ] (written ç, or c before e and i), and then [ʦ] evolved into the interdental [θ], now written z, or c before e and i. But in Andalucia, the Canary Islands and the Americas these sounds merged with [s] as well. Notice that the ç (c with cedilla) was in its origin a Spanish letter.
- Note that in the Andalucian merger of [s] with [θ], the resulting unitary phoneme could be either. Coastal regions preferred [θ], and are called ceceo dialects. More inland regions preferred [s], and are called seseo dialects. The seseo region included Seville, the major Spanish port at that time (actually on a river, Guadalquivir); and hence most of those who were destined to settle the new worlds stayed for a while in Seville before heading off, and nearby locals supplied many of the seamen and other hands on ship. It should not be surprising, then, that the entire Spanish-speaking new world speaks a language derived, essentially, from the language of Seville.
- The voiced postalveolar fricative [ʒ] (written j, or g before e and i) merged with the voiceless [ʃ] (written x, as in Quixote), and then [ʃ] evolved by the 17th century into the modern velar sound [x], now written j, or g before e and i. In much of Latin America, especially in coastal areas of Central America and northern South America, the same letters correspond to a glottal fricative, [h]. In the high lands of Mexico and generally in the southern part of the continent (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) j/g correspond to a velar fricative [x], as in standard European Spanish, but this phoneme has a palatalized allophone [ç] (German "ich" sound) in front of front vowels /i/ and /e/: general [çeneˈral], gitano [çiˈtano].
References
See also
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