Language Contact and Phonological Innovation in the Voiced Prepalatal Obstruents of Judeo-Spanish

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5901070
AutoresTravis G Bradley (0000-0003-0106-7242, University of California, Davis, autor correspondente), Claire Julia Lozano (0000-0003-0494-3471, Macalester College)
Ano2022
Volume7
Fascículo4
Páginas313
Data de publicação2022-12-19
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoLanguages (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
EditoraMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages7040313
OpenAlexW4313407489
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas61

This article traces the development of voiced prepalatal obstruents /dʒ⌢/ and /ʒ/ in Judeo-Spanish, the language spoken by the Sephardic Jews since before their expulsion from late-15th century Spain. Using Medieval Spanish as a comparative starting point, we examine diachronic innovations in the phonological status and distribution of affricate /dʒ⌢/ and fricative /ʒ/ in Judeo-Spanish during the diaspora, focusing in particular on the effects of lexical borrowing from Turkish and French in territories of the former Ottoman Empire. In contemporary Sephardic communities that are in contact with non-Sephardic varieties of Mainstream Spanish, some speakers occasionally replace syllable-initial /∫/, /dʒ⌢/, and /ʒ/ in certain Judeo-Spanish words by a voiceless velar /x/ in efforts to accommodate the pronunciation of the corresponding Mainstream Spanish cognate form. We provide a novel analysis of Judeo-Spanish voiced prepalatal obstruents, including their diachronic and synchronic variation under language contact. The analysis combines a constraint-based approach to phonological alternations, as formalized in Optimality Theory, with a usage-based representation of the mental lexicon, as proposed in Exemplar Theory, to account for speaker- and word-specific variability. A hybrid theoretical model provides a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between lexicon and grammar in Judeo-Spanish phonology than is available in previous structuralist descriptions

Language contact · Lexicon · Linguistics · Obstruent · Phonology · Pronunciation · Syllable · Turkish · Variation (astronomy · Vowel · History · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies