A Comparative Analysis of Declarative Sentences in the Spontaneous Speech of Two Puerto Rican Communities

Bibliographic Data

ID5900869
AuthorsPiero Visconte (0000-0002-6419-5447, The University of Texas at Austin), Sandro Sessarego (0000-0002-1633-5185, The University of Texas at Austin), Rajiv Rao (0000-0002-2902-7536, University of Wisconsin–Madison)
Year2024
Volume9
Issue3
Pages90
Publication date2024-03-08
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages9030090
OpenAlexW4392596146
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited42

This paper applies the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) model of intonation phonology and the Spanish Tones and Break Indices (Sp_ToBI) annotation conventions to compare the intonational contours of declarative sentences in two varieties of Puerto Rican Spanish: (1) San Juan Spanish, spoken in the capital city of San Juan, and (2) Loíza Spanish, an Afro-Hispanic vernacular spoken in Loíza. The geographical proximity between these two municipalities entails constant contact within a shared linguistic space. However, speakers from San Juan perceive Loíza as a municipality that has its own peculiar way of speaking. The acoustic and phonological analysis was carried out with PRAAT to verify whether pitch accents coincide in the spontaneous speech of the two analyzed varieties. The data we examined contain an overall predominance of the bitonal pitch accents L*+H and L

Ethnology · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Puerto rican · Computer Science · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Psychology

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