Spanish phonology

This article is about thephonologyandphoneticsof theSpanish language.Unless otherwise noted, statements refer toCastilian Spanish,the standard dialect used inSpainon radio and television.For historical development of the sound system, seeHistory of Spanish.For details of geographical variation, seeSpanish dialects and varieties.

Phonemic representationsare written inside slashes (/ /), whilephonetic representationsare written in brackets ([ ]).

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alv./ Palatal		Velar
Nasal		m				n		ɲ
Stop	p	b	t	d			tʃ	ʝ	k	ɡ
Continuant	f		θ*		s		(ʃ)		x
Lateral						l		ʎ*
Tap						ɾ
Trill						r

The phonemes/b/,/d/,and/ɡ/are pronounced as voicedstopsonly after a pause, after anasal consonant,or—in the case of/d/—after alateral consonant;in all other contexts, they are realized asapproximants(namely[β̞,ð̞,ɣ˕],hereafter represented without thedowntacks) orfricatives.

The realization of the phoneme/ʝ/varies greatly by dialect.In Castilian Spanish, its allophones in word-initial position include the palatal approximant[j],the palatal fricative[ʝ],the palatal affricate[ɟʝ]and the palatal stop[ɟ].After a pause, a nasal, or a lateral, it may be realized as anaffricate([ɟʝ]);in other contexts, /ʝ/ is generally realized as an approximant[ʝ˕].

The phoneme/ʎ/is distinguished from/ʝ/in some areas inSpain(mostly northern and rural) andSouth America(mostly highland). Other accents of Spanish, comprising the majority of speakers, have lost the palatal lateral as a distinct phoneme and have merged historical/ʎ/into/ʝ/:this is calledyeísmo.

In addition,[ʒ]and[ʃ]occurs inRioplatense Spanishas spoken across Argentina and Uruguay, where it is otherwise standard for the phonemes/ʝ/or/ʎ/to be realized asvoiced palato-alveolar fricative[ʒ]instead of[ʝ]and/ʎ/,a feature called "zheísmo".In the last few decades, it has further become popular, particularly among younger speakers in Argentina and Uruguay, to de-voice/ʒ/to[ʃ]( "sheísmo" ).In other dialects/ʃ/is a marginal phoneme that occurs only in loanwords or certain dialects; many speakers have difficulty with this sound, tending to replace it with/tʃ/or/s/.In a number of dialects (most notably, Northern Mexican Spanish, informal Chilean Spanish, and some Caribbean and Andalusian accents)[ʃ]occurs, as adeaffricated/tʃ/.

Many young Argentinians have no distinct/ɲ/phoneme and use the[nj]sequence instead, thus making no distinction betweenhurañoanduranio(both[uˈɾanjo]).

Most varieties spoken in Spain, including those prevalent on radio and television, have both/θ/and/s/(distinción). However, speakers in parts of southern Spain, the Canary Islands, and nearly all of Latin America have only/s/(seseo). Some speakers in southernmost Spain (especially coastal Andalusia) have only[s̄](a consonant similar to/θ/) and not/s/(ceceo). This "ceceo" is not entirely unknown in the Americas, especially in coastal Peru. The worddistinciónitself is pronounced with/θ/in varieties that have it.

The exact pronunciation of /s/varies widely by dialect,with some realizing it as [h] or opting to omit it entirely [∅].

The phonemes/t/and/d/arelaminaldenti-alveolar([t̪,d̪]).The phoneme/s/becomesdental[s̪]before denti-alveolar consonants,while/θ/remainsinterdental[θ̟]in all contexts.

Before front vowels/i,e/,the velar consonants/k,ɡ,x/(including the lenited allophone of/ɡ/) are realized as post-palatal[k̟,ɡ˖,x̟,ɣ˕˖].

According to some authors,/x/ispost-velaroruvularin the Spanish of northern and central Spain.Othersdescribe/x/as velar in European Spanish, with auvularallophone ([χ]) appearing before/o/and/u/(including when/u/is in the syllable onset as[w]).

A common pronunciation of/f/in nonstandard speech is thevoiceless bilabial fricative[ɸ],so thatfuerais pronounced[ˈɸweɾa]rather than[ˈfweɾa].In some Extremaduran, western Andalusian, and American varieties, this softened realization of/f/,when it occurs before the non-syllabic allophone of/u/([w]), is subject to merger with/x/;in some areas the homophony offuego/juegois resolved by replacingfuegowithlumbreorcandela.

Consonant neutralizations and assimilations

Some of thephonemic contrastsbetween consonants in Spanish are lost in certain phonological environments, especially in syllable-final position. In these cases, the phonemic contrast is said to beneutralized.

Sonorants

Nasals and laterals

In syllable-initial position, thenasal consonantsshow a three-way phonemic contrast between/m/,/n/,and/ɲ/(e.g.cama'bed',cana'grey hair',caña'sugar cane') but in syllable-final position, this contrast is generally neutralized, as nasals assimilate to theplace of articulationof the following consonant—even across a word boundary.

Within a morpheme, a syllable-final nasal is obligatorily pronounced with the same place of articulation as a following stop consonant, as inbanco[baŋ.ko].An exception to coda nasal place assimilation is the sequence/mn/that can be found in the middle of words such asalumno,columna,himno.

At the end of a word, the only nasal consonant that occurs in native vocabulary is/n/.When followed by a pause, it is realized for most speakers as alveolar[n](though inCaribbean varieties,this may instead be[ŋ]or an omitted nasal with nasalization of the preceding vowel).When followed by another consonant, morpheme-final/n/shows variable place assimilation depending on speech rate and style.

Word-final/m/and/ɲ/in stand-alone loanwords or proper nouns may be adapted to[n],e.g.álbum[ˈalβun]('album').

Similarly,/l/assimilates to the place of articulation of a followingcoronal consonant,i.e. a consonant that is interdental, dental, alveolar, or palatal.In dialects that maintain the use of/ʎ/,there is no contrast between/ʎ/and/l/in coda position, and syllable-final[ʎ]appears only as an allophone of/l/in rapid speech.

Assimilatory nasal and lateral allophones in Spanish

nasal			lateral
word	IPA	gloss	word	IPA	gloss
invierno		'winter'
ánfora		'amphora'
encía		'gum'	alzar		'to raise'
antes		'before'	alto		'tall'
ancha		'wide'	colcha		'quilt'
cónyuge		'spouse'
rincón		'corner'
enjuto		'thin'

Rhotics

Thealveolar trill[r]and thealveolar tap[ɾ]are in phonemic contrast word-internally between vowels (as incarro'car' vs.caro'expensive'), but are otherwise incomplementary distribution,as long as syllable division is taken into account: the tap occurs after any syllable-initial consonant, while the trill occurs after any syllable-final consonant.

Only the trill can occur at the start of a morpheme (e.g.elrey'the king',lareina'the queen') or at the start of a syllable when the preceding syllable ends with a consonant, namely/l/,/n/,or/s/(e.g.alrededor,enriquecer,desratizar), possibly as well as with /θ/ (e.g.lazrar).

Only the tap can occur after a word-initialobstruentconsonant (e.g.tres'three',frío'cold').

Either a trill or a tap can be found word-medially after/b/,/d/,/t/depending on whether the rhotic consonant is pronounced in the same syllable as the preceding obstruent (forming a complex onset cluster) or in a separate syllable (with the obstruent forming the coda of the preceding syllable). The tap is found in words where no morpheme boundary separates the obstruent from the following rhotic consonant, such assobre'over',madre'mother',ministro'minister'. The trill is found in words where the rhotic consonant is preceded by a morpheme boundary and thus a syllable boundary, such assubrayar, ciudadrealeño, postromántico;compare the corresponding word-initial trills inraya'line',CiudadReal"Ciudad Real",andromántico"Romantic".

In syllable-final position inside a word, the tap is more frequent, but the trill can also occur (especially in emphaticor oratoricalstyle) with no semantic difference—thusarma('weapon') may be either[ˈaɾma](tap) or[ˈarma](trill). Inword-final position the rhotic is usually:

• either a tap or a trill when followed by a consonant or a pause, as inamo[ɾ~r]paterno('paternal love'), the former being more common;
• a tap when followed by a vowel-initial word, as inamo[ɾ]eterno('eternal love').

Morphologically, a word-final rhotic always corresponds to the tapped[ɾ]in related words. Thus the wordolor'smell' is related toolores, oloroso'smells, smelly' and not to*olorres, *olorroso.

When two rhotics occur consecutively across a word or prefix boundary, they result in one trill, so thatda rocas('s/he gives rocks') anddar rocas('to give rocks') are either neutralized or distinguished by a longer trill in the latter phrase.

The tap/trill alternation has prompted a number of authors to postulate a singleunderlyingrhotic;the intervocalic contrast then results fromgemination(e.g.tierra/ˈtieɾɾa/>[ˈtjera]'earth').

Obstruents

The phonemes/θ/,/s/,and/f/may be voiced before voiced consonants, as injazmín('Jasmine')[xaðˈmin],rasgo('feature')[ˈrazɣo],andAfganistán('Afghanistan')[avɣanisˈtan].There is a certain amount of free variation in this, sojazmíncan be pronounced[xaθˈmin]or[xaðˈmin].Such voicing may occur across word boundaries, causingfeliz navidad('merry Christmas') /feˈliθ nabiˈdad/ to be pronounced [feˈlið naβ̞iˈð̞að̞].In one region of Spain, the area around Madrid, word-final/d/is sometimes pronounced[θ],especially in a colloquial pronunciation of the city's name,Madriz().More so, in some words now spelled with-z-before a voiced consonant, the phoneme/θ/is in fact diachronically derived from original[ð]or/d/.For example,yezgocomes from Old Spanishyedgo,andjuzgarcomes from Old Spanishjudgar,from Latinjūdicāre.

Both in casual and formal speech, there is no phonemic contrast betweenvoiced and voicelessconsonants placed in syllable-final position. The merged phoneme is typically pronounced as a relaxed, voicedfricativeorapproximant,although a variety of other realizations are also possible. So the clusters -bt- and -pt- in the wordsobtenerandoptimistaare pronounced exactly the same way:

• obtener/obteˈner/>[oβteˈneɾ]
• optimista/obtiˈmista/>[oβtiˈmista]

Similarly, the spellings-dm-and-tm-are often merged in pronunciation, as well as -gd- and -cd-:

• adminículo
• atmosférico
• amígdala
• anécdota

Semivowels

Traditionally, the palatal consonant phoneme/ʝ/is considered to occur only as a syllable onset,whereas the palatal glide[j]that can be found after an onset consonant in words likebienis analyzed as a non-syllabic version of the vowel phoneme/i/(which forms part of the syllable nucleus, being pronounced with the following vowel as arising diphthong). The approximant allophone of/ʝ/,which can be transcribed as[ʝ˕],differs phonetically from[j]in the following respects:[ʝ˕]has a lowerF2amplitude, is longer, can be replaced by apalatal fricative[ʝ]in emphatic pronunciations, and is unspecified for rounding (e.g.viuda'widow' vs.ayuda'help').

After a consonant, the surface contrast between[ʝ]and[j]depends on syllabification, which in turn is largely predictable from morphology: the syllable boundary before[ʝ]corresponds to the morphological boundary after a prefix.A contrast is therefore possible after any consonant that can end a syllable, as illustrated by the following minimal or near-minimal pairs: after/l/(italiano[itaˈljano]'Italian' vs.y talllano[italˈɟʝano]'and such a plain'), after/n/(enyesar'to plaster' vs.aniego'flood') after/s/(desierto/deˈsieɾto/'desert' vs.deshielo/desˈʝelo/'thawing'), after/b/(abierto/aˈbieɾto/'open' vs.abyecto/abˈʝeɡto/'abject').

Although there is dialectal and idiolectal variation, speakers may also exhibit a contrast in phrase-initial position.In Argentine Spanish, the change of/ʝ/to a fricative realized as[ʒ~ʃ]has resulted in clear contrast between this consonant and the glide[j];the latter occurs as a result of spelling pronunciation in words spelled with⟨hi⟩,such ashierba[ˈjeɾβa]'grass' (which thus forms a minimal pair in Argentine Spanish with the doubletyerba[ˈʒeɾβa]'maté leaves').

There are somealternationsbetween the two, prompting scholars likeAlarcos Llorach (1950)to postulate anarchiphoneme/I/,so thatleywould be transcribed phonemically as/ˈleI/andleyesas/ˈleIes/.

In a number of varieties, including some American ones, there is a similar distinction between the non-syllabic version of the vowel/u/and a rare consonantal/w̝/.Near-minimal pairs includedeshuesar('to debone') vs.desuello('skinning'),sonhuevos('they are eggs') vs.son nuevos('they are new'),andhuaca('Indian grave') vs.u oca('or goose').

Vowels

Spanish vowel chart, fromLadefoged & Johnson (2010:227)

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Spanish has five vowel phonemes,/i/,/u/,/e/,/o/and/a/(the same asAsturian-Leonese,Aragonese,and alsoBasque). Each of the five vowels occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables:

Examples of Spanish vowels

stressed			unstressed
word		gloss	word		gloss
piso		'I step'	pisó		's/he stepped'
pujo		'I bid' (present tense)	pujó		's/he bid'
peso		'I weigh'	pesó		's/he weighed'
poso		'I pose'	posó		's/he posed'
paso		'I pass'	pasó		's/he passed'

Nevertheless, there are some distributional gaps or rarities. For instance, an unstressedclose vowelin the final syllable of a word is rare.

There is nosurface phonemic distinctionbetween close-mid and open-mid vowels, unlike inCatalan,Galician,French,ItalianandPortuguese.In the historical development of Spanish, former open-mid vowels/ɛ,ɔ/were replaced with diphthongs/ie,ue/in stressed syllables, and merged with the close-mid/e,o/in unstressed syllables.The diphthongs/ie,ue/regularly correspond to open/ɛ,ɔ/in Portuguese cognates; comparesiete/ˈsiete/'seven' andfuerte/ˈfuerte/'strong' with the Portuguese cognatessete/ˈsɛtɨ/andforte/ˈfɔɾtɨ/,meaning the same.

There are somesynchronicalternations between the diphthongs/ie,ue/in stressed syllables and the monophthongs/e,o/in unstressed syllables: compareheló/eˈlo/'it froze' andtostó/tosˈto/'he toasted' withhiela/ˈʝela/'it freezes' andtuesto/ˈtuesto/'I toast'.It has thus been argued that the historically open-mid vowels remain underlyingly, giving Spanish seven vowel phonemes.

Because of substratalQuechua,at least some speakers from southern Colombia down through Peru can be analyzed to have only three vowel phonemes/i,u,a/,as the close[i,u]are continually confused with the mid[e,o],resulting in pronunciations such as[dolˈsoɾa]fordulzura('sweetness').When Quechua-dominant bilinguals have/e,o/in their phonemic inventory, they realize them as[ɪ,ʊ],which are heard by outsiders as variants of/i,u/.Both of those features are viewed as strongly non-standard by other speakers.

Allophones

Phonetic nasalization occurs for vowels occurring between nasal consonants or when preceding a syllable-final nasal, e.g.cinco[ˈθĩŋko]('five') andmano[ˈmãno]('hand').

Arguably, Eastern Andalusian and Murcian Spanish have ten phonemic vowels, with each of the above vowels paired by a lowered or fronted and lengthened version, e.g.la madre[laˈmaðɾe]('the mother') vs.las madres[læːˈmæːðɾɛː]('the mothers').However, these are more commonly analyzed as allophones triggered by an underlying/s/that is subsequently deleted.

Exact number of allophones

There is no agreement among scholars on how many vowel allophones Spanish has; an oftenpostulated number is five[i,u,e̞,o̞,a̠].

Some scholars,however, state that Spanish haselevenallophones: the close and mid vowels have close[i,u,e,o]and open[ɪ,ʊ,ɛ,ɔ]allophones, whereas/a/appears in front[a],central[a̠]and back[ɑ]variants. These symbols appear only in the narrowest variant of phonetic transcription; in broader variants, only the symbols ⟨i, u, e, o, a⟩ are used,and that is the convention adopted in the rest of this article.

Tomás Navarro Tomás describes the distribution of said eleven allophones as follows:

• Close vowels/i,u/
  • The close allophones[i,u]appear in open syllables, e.g. in the wordslibre[ˈliβɾe]'free' andsubir[suˈβɪɾ]'to raise'
  • The open allophones are phonetically near-close[ɪ,ʊ],and appear:
    • In closed syllables, e.g. in the wordfin[fɪn]'end'
    • In both open and closed syllables when in contact with/r/,e.g. in the wordsrico[ˈrɪko]'rich' andrubio[ˈrʊβjo]'blond'
    • In both open and closed syllables when before/x/,e.g. in the wordshijo[ˈɪxo]'son' andpujó[pʊˈxo]'s/he bid'
• Mid front vowel/e/
  • The close allophone is phonetically close-mid[e],and appears:
    • In open syllables, e.g. in the worddedo[ˈdeðo]'finger'
    • In closed syllables when before/m,n,t,θ,s/,e.g. in the wordValencia[ba̠ˈlenθja̠]'Valencia'
  • The open allophone is phonetically open-mid[ɛ],and appears:
    • In open syllables when in contact with/r/,e.g. in the wordsguerra[ˈɡɛra̠]'war' andreto[ˈrɛto]'challenge'
    • In closed syllables when not followed by/m,n,t,θ,s/,e.g. in the wordbelga[ˈbɛlɣa̠]'Belgian'
    • In the diphthong[ej],e.g. in the wordspeine[ˈpɛjne]'comb' andrey[ˈrɛj]king
• Mid back vowel/o/
  • The close allophone is phonetically close-mid[o],and appears in open syllables, e.g. in the wordcomo[ˈkomo]'how'
  • The open allophone is phonetically open-mid[ɔ],and appears:
    • In closed syllables, e.g. in the wordcon[kɔn]'with'
    • In both open and closed syllables when in contact with/r/,e.g. in the wordscorro[ˈkɔrɔ]'I run',barro[ˈba̠rɔ]'mud', androble[ˈrɔβle]'oak'
    • In both open and closed syllables when before/x/,e.g. in the wordojo[ˈɔxo]'eye'
    • In the diphthong[oj],e.g. in the wordhoy[ɔj]'today'
    • In stressed position when preceded by/a/and followed by either/ɾ/or/l/,e.g. in the wordahora[ɑˈɔɾa̠]'now'
• Open vowel/a/
  • The front allophone[a]appears:
    • Before palatal consonants, e.g. in the worddespacho[desˈpatʃo]'office'
    • In the diphthong[aj],e.g. in the wordaire[ˈajɾe]'air'
  • The back allophone[ɑ]appears:
    • In the diphthong[aw],e.g. in the wordflauta[ˈflɑwta̠]'flute'
    • Before/o/
    • In closed syllables before/l/,e.g. in the wordsal[sɑl]'salt'
    • In both open and closed syllables when before/x/,e.g. in the wordtajada[tɑˈxa̠ða̠]'chop'
  • The central allophone[a̠]appears in all other cases, e.g. in the wordcasa[ˈka̠sa̠]

According to Eugenio Martínez Celdrán, however, systematic classification of Spanish allophones is impossible due to the fact that their occurrence varies from speaker to speaker and from region to region. According to him, the exact degree of openness of Spanish vowels depends not so much on the phonetic environment, but rather on various external factors accompanying speech.

Diphthongs and triphthongs

Spanish diphthongs

	IPA	Example	Meaning	IPA	Example	Meaning
	Falling			Rising
a	[aj]	aire	air	[ja]	hacia	towards
	[aw]	pausa	pause	[wa]	cuadro	picture
e	[ej]	rey	king	[je]	tierra	earth
	[ew]	neutro	neutral	[we]	fuego	fire
o	[oj]	hoy	today	[jo]	radio	radio
	[ow]	bou	seine fishing	[wo]	cuota	quota
	Falling			Rising
i	—			[wi]	fuimos	we went
u	[uj]	muy	very	[ju]	viuda	widow

Spanish has six fallingdiphthongsand eight rising diphthongs. While many diphthongs are historically the result of a recategorization of vowel sequences (hiatus) as diphthongs, there is still lexical contrast between diphthongs andhiatus.Some lexical items vary amongst speakers and dialects between hiatus and diphthong: words likebiólogo('biologist') with a potential diphthong in the first syllable and words likediálogowith a stressed or pretonic sequence of/i/and a vowel vary between a diphthong and hiatus.Chițoran & Hualde (2007)hypothesize that this is because vocalic sequences are longer in these positions.

In addition tosynalephaacross word boundaries, sequences of vowels in hiatus become diphthongs in fast speech; when this happens, one vowel becomes non-syllabic (unless they are the same vowel, in which case they fuse together) as inpoeta[ˈpo̯eta]('poet') andmaestro[ˈmae̯stɾo]('teacher').Similarly, the relatively rare diphthong/eu/may be reduced to[u]in certain unstressed contexts, as inEufemia,[uˈfemja].In the case of verbs likealiviar('relieve'), diphthongs result from the suffixation of normal verbal morphology onto a stem-final/j/(that is,aliviarwould be |alibj| + |ar|).This contrasts with verbs likeampliar('to extend') which, by their verbal morphology, seem to have stems ending in/i/.

Non-syllabic/e/and/o/can be reduced to[j],[w],as inbeatitud[bjatiˈtuð]('beatitude') andpoetisa[pweˈtisa]('poetess'), respectively; similarly, non-syllabic/a/can be completely elided, as in (e.g.ahorita[oˈɾita]'right away'). The frequency (though not the presence) of this phenomenon differs amongst dialects, with a number having it occur rarely and others exhibiting it always.

Spanish also possessestriphthongslike/uei/and, in dialects that use a second person plural conjugation,/iai/,/iei/,and/uai/(e.g.buey,'ox';cambiáis,'you change';cambiéis,'(that) you may change'; andaveriguáis,'you ascertain').

Prosody

Spanish is usually considered asyllable-timed language.Even so, stressed syllables can be up to 50% longer in duration than non-stressed syllables.Although pitch, duration, and loudness contribute to the perception of stress,pitch is the most important in isolation.

Primary stress occurs on thepenultima(the next-to-last syllable) 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time, stress falls on the ultima (last syllable) or on the antepenultima (third-to-last syllable).

Nonverbs are generallystressedon the penultimate syllable for vowel-final words and on the final syllable of consonant-final words. Exceptions are marked orthographically (see below), whereas regular words are underlyingly phonologically marked with a stress feature [+stress].

In addition to exceptions to these tendencies, particularly learned words from Greek and Latin that feature antepenultimate stress, there are numerousminimal pairswhich contrast solely on stress such assábana('sheet') andsabana('savannah'), as well aslímite('boundary'),limite('[that] he/she limit') andlimité('I limited').

Lexical stress may be marked orthographically with anacute accent(ácido,distinción,etc.). This is done according to the mandatory stress rules ofSpanish orthography,which parallel the tendencies above (differing with words likedistinción) and are defined so as to unequivocally indicate where the stress lies in a given written word. An acute accent may also be used to differentiate homophones, such asmi(my), andmí(me). In such cases, the accent is used on the homophone that normally receives greater stress when used in a sentence.

Lexical stress patterns are different between words carrying verbal and nominal inflection: in addition to the occurrence of verbal affixes with stress (something absent in nominal inflection), underlying stress also differs in that it falls on the last syllable of the inflectional stem in verbal words while those of nominal words may have ultimate or penultimate stress.In addition, amongst sequences of clitics suffixed to a verb, the rightmost clitic may receive secondary stress, e.g.búscalo/ˈbuskaˌlo/('look for it').

Phonotactics

Syllable structure

Spanishsyllable structureconsists of an optional syllable onset, consisting of one or two consonants; an obligatory syllable nucleus, consisting of a vowel optionally preceded by and/or followed by asemivowel;and an optional syllable coda, consisting of one or two consonants.This can be summarized as follows (parentheses enclose optional components):

• (C₁(C₂)) (S₁) V (S₂) (C₃(C₄))

The following restrictions apply:

• Onset
  • First consonant (C₁): Can be any consonant.However, as discussed above,the contrast between the two rhotic consonants is neutralizedat the start of a word or when the preceding syllable ends in a consonant: only/r/is possible in those positions. Either/ɾ/or/r/is possible as a word-internal onset after a vowel.
  • Second consonant (C₂): If and only if the first consonant is a stop/p,t,k,b,d,ɡ/,a voiceless labiodental fricative/f/,or marginally the nonstandard /v/,a second consonant, either/l/or/ɾ/,is permitted./tl/is prohibited as an onset cluster in most of Peninsular Spanish, while/tl/sequences such as inatleta'athlete' are usually treated as an onset cluster in Latin America and the Canaries.The sequence/dl/is also avoided as an onset,seemingly to a greater degree than/tl/.
• Nucleus
  • Semivowel (S₁)
  • Vowel (V)
  • Semivowel (S₂) Some linguists consider postvocalic glides to be part of the coda rather than the nucleus.
• Coda
  • First consonant (C₃): Can be any consonant except/ɲ/,/ʝ/or/ʎ/.
  • Second consonant (C₄): Always/s/in native Spanish words.Other consonants, except/ɲ/,/ʝ/and/ʎ/,are tolerated as long as they are lesssonorousthan the first consonant in the coda, such as inYorkor the Catalan last nameBrucart,though sometimes the final element is deleted in colloquial speech.A coda of two consonants never appears in words inherited from Vulgar Latin.
  • In many dialects, a coda cannot be more than one consonant (one of n, r, l or s) in informal speech. Realizations like/tɾasˈpoɾ.te/,/is.taˈlar/,/pes.peɡˈti.ba/are very common, and in many cases, they are allowed even in formal speech.

Maximal onsets includetransporte/tɾansˈpor.te/,flaco/ˈfla.ko/,clave/ˈkla.be/.

Maximal nuclei includebuey/buei/,Uruguay/u.ɾuˈɡuai/.

Maximal codas includeinstalar/ins.taˈlar/,perspectiva/peɾs.peɡˈti.ba/.

Spanish syllable structure is phrasal, resulting in syllables consisting of phonemes from neighboring words in combination, sometimes even resulting in elision. The phenomenon is known in Spanish asenlace.For a brief discussion contrasting Spanish and English syllable structure, seeWhitley (2002:32–35).

Other phonotactic tendencies

• The palatal sonorants/ʎ,ɲ/are rare in certain positions, although this may be a consequence of their diachronic origins (being derived often, though not exclusively, from Latin geminate consonants) rather than a matter of synchronic constraints.
  • Per Baker 2004, the palatal sonorants/ʎ,ɲ/are not found as word-internal onsets when the preceding syllable ends in a coda consonant or glide.A number of exceptions to this generalization exist, however, including prefixed or compound words (such asconllevar,bienllegada,panllevar), borrowed words (such ashuaiño,aillu,aclla,from Quechua), and forms that originate from non-Castilian Romance varieties (such as Asturianpiesllo). The sequence[au̯ɲ]occurs in some proper names, such as the toponymAuñón(from Latinalneus) andAuñamendi(a publishing house name taken from the Basque name of thePic d'Anie);[au̯ʎ]occurs in some words, such asaullarandmaullar.
  • Although word-initial/ɲ/is not forbidden (for example, it occurs in borrowed words such asñandúandñuand in dialectal forms such asñudo) it is relatively rareand so may be described as having restricted distribution in this position.
• In native Spanish words, the trill/r/does not appear after a glide.That said, it does appear after[w]in some Basque loans, such asAurrerá,a grocery store,Abaurrea AltaandAbaurrea Baja,towns in Navarre,aurresku,a type of dance, andaurragado,an adjective referring to poorly tilled land.
• When the final syllable of a word begins with any of/ʎɲʝtʃr/,the word typically does not display antepenultimate stress.

Epenthesis

Because of the phonotactic constraints, an epenthetic/e/is inserted before word-initial clusters beginning with/s/(e.g.escribir'to write') but not word-internally (transcribir'to transcribe'),thereby moving the initial/s/to a separate syllable. The epenthetic/e/is pronounced even when it is not reflected in spelling (e.g. the surname ofCarlos Slimis pronounced/eˈslim/).While Spanish words undergo word-initial epenthesis, cognates in Latin and Italian do not:

• Lat.status/ˈsta.tus/('state') ~ It.stato/ˈsta.to/~ Sp.estado/esˈta.do/
• Lat.splendidus/ˈsplen.di.dus/('splendid') ~ It.splendido/ˈsplen.di.do/~ Sp.espléndido/esˈplen.di.do/
• Fr.slave/slav/('Slav') ~ It.slavo/ˈzla.vo/~ Sp.eslavo/esˈla.bo/

In addition, Spanish adopts foreign words starting with pre-nasalized consonants with an epenthetic/e/.Nguema,a prominent last name fromEquatorial Guinea,is pronounced as[eŋˈɡema].

When adapting word-final complex codas that show rising sonority, an epenthetic/e/is inserted between the two consonants. For example,al Sadris typically pronounced[al.sa.ðeɾ].

Occasionally Spanish speakers are faced with onset clusters containing elements of equal or near-equal sonority, such asKnoll(a German last name, common in parts of South America). Assimilated borrowings usually delete the first element in such clusters, for example(p)sicología'psychology'. When attempting to pronounce such words for the first time without deleting the first consonant, Spanish speakers insert a short, often devoiced, schwa-likesvarabhaktivowel between the two consonants.

Alternations

Some alternations exist in Spanish that reflect diachronic changes in the language and arguably reflectmorphophonologicalprocesses rather than strictly phonological ones. For instance, some words alternate between/k/and/θ/or/ɡ/and/x/,with the latter in each pair appearing before a front vowel:

Examples of Spanish alternations

word		gloss	word		gloss
opaco	/oˈpako/	'opaque'	opacidad	/opaθiˈdad/	'opacity'
sueco	/ˈsweko/	'Swedish'	Suecia	/ˈsweθja/	'Sweden'
belga	/ˈbelɡa/	'Belgian'	Bélgica	/ˈbelxika/	'Belgium'
análogo	/aˈnaloɡo/	'analogous'	analogía	/analoˈxi.a/	'analogy'

Note that the conjugation of most verbs with a stem ending in/k/or/ɡ/doesnotshow this alternation; these segments do not turn into/θ/or/x/before a front vowel:

word		gloss	word		gloss
seco	/ˈseko/	'I dry'	seque	/ˈseke/	'(that) I/he/she dry (subjunctive)'
castigo	/kasˈtiɡo/	'I punish'	castigue	/kasˈtiɡe/	'(that) I/he/she punish (subjunctive)'

There are also alternations between unstressed/e/and/o/and stressed/ie/(or/ʝe/,when initial) and/ue/respectively:

word		gloss	word		gloss
heló	/eˈlo/	'it froze'	hiela	/ˈʝela/	'it freezes'
tostó	/tosˈto/	'he toasted'	tuesto	/ˈtuesto/	'I toast'

Likewise, in a very small number of words, alternations occur between the palatal sonorants/ʎɲ/and their corresponding alveolar sonorants/ln/(doncella/doncel'maiden'/'youth',desdeñar/desdén'to scorn'/'scorn'). This alternation does not appear in verbal or nominal inflection (that is, the plural ofdoncelisdonceles,not *doncelles).This is the result of geminated/ll/and/nn/ofVulgar Latin(the origin of/ʎ/and/ɲ/,respectively) degeminating and then depalatalizing in coda position.Words without any palatal-alveolar allomorphy are the result of historical borrowings.

Other alternations include/ɡs/~/x/(anexovs.anejo),/ɡt/~/tʃ/(nocturnovs.noche).Here the forms with/ɡs/and/ɡt/are historical borrowings and the forms with/x/and/tʃ/forms are inherited from Vulgar Latin.

There are also pairs that show antepenultimate stress in nouns and adjectives but penultimate stress in synonymous verbs (vómito'vomit' vs.vomito'I vomit').

Acquisition as a first language

Phonology

Phonological developmentvaries greatly by individual, both those developing regularly and those with delays. However, a general pattern of acquisition of phonemes can be inferred by the level of complexity of their features, i.e. by sound classes.A hierarchy may be constructed, and if a child is capable of producing discrimination on one level, they will also be capable of making the discriminations of all prior levels.

• The first level consists of stops (without a voicing distinction), nasals,[l],and optionally, a non-lateral approximant. This includes alabial/coronalplace difference (for example,[b]vs.[t]and[l]vs.[β]).
• The second level includes voicing distinction for oral stops and acoronal/dorsalplace difference. This allows for a distinction between[p],[t],and[k],along with their voiced counterparts, as well as a distinction between[l]and the approximant[j].
• The third level includes fricatives and/or affricates.
• The fourth level introduces liquids other than[l],[ɹ]and[ɾ].It also introduces[θ].
• The fifth level introduces the trill[r].

This hierarchy is based on production only, and is a representation of a child's capacity to produce a sound, whether that sound is the correct target in adult speech or not. Thus, it may contain some sounds that are not included in adult phonology but are produced as a result of error.

Spanish-speaking children will accurately produce mostsegmentsat a relatively early age. By around three-and-a-half years, they will no longer productively use phonological processesthe majority of the time. Some common error patterns (found 10% or more of the time) arecluster reduction,liquid simplification, and stopping. Less common patterns (evidenced less than 10% of the time) includepalatal fronting,assimilation,and finalconsonant deletion.

Typical phonological analyses of Spanish consider the consonants/b/,/d/,and/ɡ/theunderlying phonemesand their corresponding approximants[β],[ð],and[ɣ]allophonic and derivable byphonological rules.However, approximants may be the more basic form because monolingual Spanish-learning children learn to produce the continuant contrast between[ptk]and[βðɣ]before they do the lead voicing contrast between[ptk]and[bdɡ].(In comparison, English-learning children are able to produce adult-like voicing contrasts for these stops well before age three.)The allophonic distribution of[bdɡ]and[βðɣ]produced in adult speech is not learned until after age two and not fully mastered even at age four.

Thealveolar trill[r]is one of the most difficult sounds to produce in Spanish and, as a result, is acquired later in development.Research suggests that the alveolar trill is acquired and developed between the ages of three and six years.Some children acquire an adult-like trill within this period, and some fail to properly acquire the trill. The attempted trill sound of the poor trillers is often perceived as a series oftapsowing to hyperactive tongue movement during production.The trill is also often very difficult for those learning Spanish as a second language, sometimes taking over a year to be produced properly.

Codas

One research study found that children acquire medialcodasbefore final codas, and stressed codas before unstressed codas.Since medial codas are often stressed and must undergo place assimilation, greater importance is accorded to their acquisition.Liquidandnasalcodas occur word-medially and at the ends of frequently used function words, so they are often acquired first.

Prosody

Research suggests that children overgeneralize stress rules when they are reproducing novel Spanish words and that they have a tendency to stress the penultimate syllables of antepenultimately stressed words, to avoid a violation of nonverb stress rules that they have acquired.Many of the most frequent words heard by children have irregular stress patterns or are verbs, which violate nonverb stress rules.This complicates stress rules until ages three to four, when stress acquisition is essentially complete, and children begin to apply these rules to novel irregular situations.

Dialectal variation

Some features, such as the pronunciation of voiceless stops/ptk/,have no dialectal variation.However, there are numerous other features of pronunciation that differ from dialect to dialect.

Yeísmo

Main article:Yeísmo

One notable dialectal feature is the merging of thevoiced palatal approximant[ʝ](as inayer) with thepalatal lateral approximant[ʎ](as incalle) into one phoneme (yeísmo), with/ʎ/losing its laterality. While the distinction between these two sounds has traditionally been a feature of Castilian Spanish, this merger has spread throughout most of Spain in recent generations, particularly outside of regions in close linguistic contact with Catalan and Basque.In Spanish America, most dialects are characterized by this merger, with the distinction persisting mostly in parts of Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and northwestern Argentina.In the other parts of Argentina, the phoneme resulting from the merger is realized as[ʒ];and inBuenos Airesthe sound has recently been devoiced to[ʃ]among the younger population; the change is spreading throughout Argentina.

Seseo,ceceoanddistinción

Main article:Phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives

Most dialects inSpanish from Spainhave [s] / [θ] contrast (distinción), while [θ] is absent in Latin America and parts of Spain (seseo).

Speakers in northern and central Spain, including the variety prevalent on radio and television, have both/θ/and/s/(distinción,'distinction'). However, speakers in Latin America, Canary Islands and some parts of southern Spain have only/s/(seseo), which in southernmost Spain is pronounced[θ]and not[s](ceceo).

Realization of/s/

The phoneme/s/has three different pronunciations depending on the dialect area:

1. Anapicalalveolar retracted fricative(or "apico-alveolar"fricative)[s̺],which sounds similar to English/ʃ/and is characteristic of the northern and central parts ofSpainand is also used by many speakers in Colombia'sAntioquia department.
2. Alaminalalveolar grooved fricative[s],much like the most common pronunciation of English/s/,is characteristic of western Andalusia (e.g.Málaga,Seville,andCádiz), the Canary Islands, and Latin America.
3. Anapicaldental grooved fricative[s̄](ad hoc symbol), which has a lisping quality and sounds something like a cross between English/s/and/θ/but is different from the/θ/occurring in dialects that distinguish/s/and/θ/.It occurs only in dialects withceceo,mostly inGranada,in parts ofJaén,in the southern part ofSevillaand the mountainous areas shared betweenCádizandMálaga.

Obaid describes the apico-alveolar sound as follows:

There is a Castilians,which is a voiceless, concave, apicoalveolar fricative: the tip of the tongue turned upward forms a narrow opening against the alveoli of the upper incisors. It resembles a faint/ʃ/and is found throughout much of the northern half of Spain.

Dalbor describes the apico-dental sound as follows:

[s̄]is a voiceless, corono-dentoalveolar groove fricative, the so-calleds coronalors planabecause of the relatively flat shape of the tongue body... To this writer, the coronal[s̄],heard throughout Andalusia, should be characterized by such terms as "soft," "fuzzy," or "imprecise," which, as we shall see, brings it quite close to one variety of/θ/... Canfield has referred, quite correctly, in our opinion, to this[s̄]as "the lispingcoronal-dental,"and Amado Alonso remarks how close it is to the post-dental[θ̦],suggesting a combined symbol ⟨θˢ̣⟩ to represent it.

In some dialects,/s/may become the approximant[ɹ]in the syllable coda (e.g.doscientos[doɹˈθjentos]'two hundred').In southern dialects in Spain, most lowland dialects in the Americas, and in the Canary Islands, itdebuccalizesto[h]in final position (e.g.niños[ˈniɲoh]'children'), or before another consonant (e.g.fósforo[ˈfohfoɾo]'match') so the change occurs in thecodaposition in a syllable. In Spain, this was originally a southern feature, but it is now expanding rapidly to the north.

From an autosegmental point of view, the/s/phoneme in Madrid is defined only by itsvoicelessandfricativefeatures. Thus, the point of articulation is not defined and is determined from the sounds following it in the word or sentence. In Madrid, the following realizations are found:/pesˈkado/>[pexˈkao]and/ˈfosfoɾo/>[ˈfofːoɾo].In parts of southern Spain, the only feature defined for/s/appears to bevoiceless;it may lose its oral articulation entirely to become[h]or even a geminate with the following consonant ([ˈmihmo]or[ˈmimːo]from/ˈmismo/'same').In Eastern Andalusian and Murcian Spanish, word-final/s/,/θ/and/x/regularly weaken, and the preceding vowel is lowered and lengthened:

/is/>[ɪː]e.g.mis[mɪː]('my' pl)

/es/>[ɛː]e.g.mes[mɛː]('month')

/as/>[æː]e.g.más[mæː]('plus')

/os/>[ɔː]e.g.tos[tɔː]('cough')

/us/>[ʊː]e.g.tus[tʊː]('your' pl)

A subsequent process ofvowel harmonytakes place solejos('far') is[ˈlɛxɔ],tenéis('you [plural] have') is[tɛˈnɛj]andtréboles('clovers') is[ˈtɾɛβɔlɛ]or[ˈtɾɛβolɛ].

Coda simplification

Southern European Spanish (Andalusian Spanish, Murcian Spanish, etc.) and several lowland dialects in Latin America (such as those from the Caribbean, Panama, and the Atlantic coast of Colombia) exhibit more extreme forms of simplification of coda consonants:

• word-final dropping of/s/(e.g.compás[komˈpa]'musical beat' or 'compass')
• word-final dropping of nasals with nasalization of the preceding vowel (e.g.ven[bẽ]'come')
• dropping of/r/in the infinitival morpheme (e.g.comer[koˈme]'to eat')
• the occasional dropping of coda consonants word-internally (e.g.doctor[doˈto(r)]'doctor').

The dropped consonants appear when additional suffixation occurs (e.g.compases[komˈpase]'beats',venían[beˈni.ã]'they were coming',comeremos[komeˈɾemo]'we will eat'). Similarly, a number of coda assimilations occur:

• /l/and/r/may neutralize to[j](e.g.CibaeñoDominicancelda/cerda[ˈsejða]'cell'/'bristle'), to[l](e.g. Caribbean Spanishalma/arma[ˈalma]'soul'/'weapon', Andalusian Spanishsartén[salˈtẽ]'pan'), to[r](e.g. Andalusian Spanishalma/arma[ˈarma]) or, by complete regressive assimilation, to a copy of the following consonant (e.g.pulga/purga[ˈpuɡːa]'flea'/'purge',carne[ˈkanːe]'meat').
• /s/,/x/,(and/θ/in southern Peninsular Spanish) and/f/may be debuccalized or elided in the coda (e.g.los amigos[lo(h)aˈmiɣo(h)]'the friends').
• Stops and nasals may be realized as velar (e.g. Cuban and Venezuelanétnico[ˈeɡniko]'ethnic',himno[ˈiŋno]'anthem').

Final/d/dropping (e.g.mitad[miˈta]'half') is general in most dialects of Spanish, even in formal speech.

The neutralization of syllable-final/p/,/t/,and/k/is widespread in most dialects (with e.g.Pepsibeing pronounced[ˈpeksi]). It does not face as much stigma as other neutralizations and may go unnoticed.

The deletions and neutralizations show variability in their occurrence, even with the same speaker in the same utterance, so non-deleted forms exist in the underlying structure.The dialects may not be on the path to eliminating coda consonants since deletion processes have been existing for more than four centuries.Guitart (1997)argues that it is the result of speakers acquiring multiple phonological systems with uneven control like that of second language learners.

In Standard European Spanish, the voiced obstruents/b,d,ɡ/before a pause are devoiced and laxed to[β̥˕,ð̥˕,ɣ̊˕],as inclub[kluβ̥˕]('[social] club'),sed[seð̥]('thirst'),zigzag[θiɣˈθaɣ̊˕].However, word-final/b/is rare, and/ɡ/even more so. They are restricted mostly to loanwords and foreign names, such as the first name of formerReal Madridsports directorPredrag Mijatović,which is pronounced[ˈpɾeð̞ɾaɣ̊˕];and after another consonant, the voiced obstruent may even be deleted, as iniceberg,pronounced[iθeˈβeɾ].In Madrid and its environs,sedis alternatively pronounced[seθ],where the aforementioned alternative pronunciation of word-final/d/as[θ]coexists with the standard realization,but is otherwise nonstandard.

Loan sounds

The fricative/ʃ/may also appear in borrowings from other languages, such asNahuatlandEnglish.In addition, the affricates/t͡s/and/t͡ɬ/also occur in Nahuatl borrowings.That said, the onset cluster/tl/is permitted in most of Latin America, the Canaries, and the northwest of Spain, and the fact that it is pronounced in the same amount of time as the other voiceless stop + lateral clusters/pl/and/kl/support an analysis of the/tl/sequence as a cluster rather than an affricate in Mexican Spanish.

Sample

This sample is an adaptation of Aesop's "El Viento del Norte y el Sol" (The North Wind and the Sun) read by a man fromNorthern Mexicoborn in the late 1980s. As usual inMexican Spanish,/θ/and/ʎ/are not present.

Orthographic version

El Viento del Norte y el Sol discutían por saber quién era el más fuerte de los dos. Mientras discutían, se acercó un viajero cubierto en un cálido abrigo. Entonces decidieron que el más fuerte sería quien lograse despojar al viajero de su abrigo. El Viento del Norte empezó, soplando tan fuerte como podía, pero entre más fuerte soplaba, el viajero más se arropaba. Entonces, el Viento desistió. Se llegó el turno del Sol, quien comenzó a brillar con fuerza. Esto hizo que el viajero sintiera calor y por ello se quitó su abrigo. Entonces el Viento del Norte tuvo que reconocer que el Sol era el más fuerte de los dos.

Phonemic transcription

/elˈbientodelˈnoɾteielˈsoldiskuˈti.anpoɾsaˈbeɾˈkienˈeɾaelˈmasˈfueɾtedelosˈdos‖mientɾasdiskuˈti.anseaseɾˈkounbiaˈxeɾokuˈbieɾtoenunˈkalidoaˈbɾiɡo|enˈtonsesdesiˈdieɾonkeelˈmasˈfueɾteseˈɾi.akienloˈɡɾasedespoˈxaɾalbiaˈxeɾodesuaˈbɾiɡo‖elˈbientodelˈnoɾteempeˈsosoˈplandotanˈfueɾtekomopoˈdi.a|peɾoentɾeˈmasˈfueɾtesoˈplabaelbiaˈxeɾoˈmassearoˈpaba|enˈtonseselˈbientodesisˈtio|seʝeˈɡoelˈtuɾnodelˈsolkienkomenˈsoabɾiˈʝaɾkonˈfueɾsa|ˈestoˈisokeelbiaˈxeɾosinˈtieɾakaˈloɾipoɾˈeʝosekiˈtosuaˈbɾiɡo‖enˈtonseselˈbientodelˈnoɾteˈtubokerekonoˈseɾkeelˈsolˈeɾaelˈmasˈfueɾtedelosˈdos/

Phonetic transcription

[elˈβjentoðelˈnoɾtej‿elˈsoldiskuˈti.amporsaˈβeɾˈkjeneɾa‿e̯lˈmasˈfweɾteðelosˈðos‖ˈmjentɾasðiskuˈti.anˌse̯‿aseɾˈko‿wmbjaˈxeɾokuˈβjeɾto̯‿enuŋˈkaliðo̯‿aˈβɾiɣo|enˈtonsesðesiˈðjeɾoŋk‿elˈmasˈfweɾteseˈɾi.akjenloˈɣɾaseðespoˈxaɾalβjaˈxeɾoðeswaˈβɾiɣo‖elˈβjentoðelˌnoɾt‿empeˈsosoˈplandotaɱˈfweɾteˌkomopoˈði.a|ˈpeɾo̯‿entɾeˈmasˈfweɾtesoˈplaβaelβjaˈxeɾoˈmasˌse̯‿aroˈpaβa|enˈtonseselˈβjentoðesisˈtjo|seʝeˈɣo̯‿elˈtuɾnoðelsolˌkjeŋkomenˈso̯‿aβɾiˈʝarkoɱˈfweɾsa|ˈesto‿jsok‿elβjaxeɾosinˈtjeɾakaˈloɾipoɾeʝosekiˈtoswaˈβɾiɣo‖enˈtonseselˈβjentoðelˈnoɾteˈtuβokerekonoˈseɾˌkelˈsolˈeɾa‿e̯lˈmasˈfweɾteðelosˈðos]

See also

• History of the Spanish language
• List of phonetics topics
• Spanish dialects and varieties
• Stress in Spanish
• RFE Phonetic Alphabet– phonetic transcription system for Iberian languages, proposed by Tomás Navarro Tomás and adopted by Centro de Estudios Históricos for use in its journal Revista de Filología Española (whence its name)Pages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback

References

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Further reading

• Avelino, Heriberto (2018),"Mexico City Spanish"(PDF),Journal of the International Phonetic Association,48(2): 223–230,doi:10.1017/S0025100316000232
• Bongiovanni, Silvina (2019), "An acoustical analysis of the merger of/ɲ/and/nj/in Buenos Aires Spanish ",Journal of the International Phonetic Association,doi:10.1017/S0025100318000440,S2CID151047029
• Colantoni, Laura; Marinescu, Irina (2010), Ortega-Llebaria, Marta (ed.),"The Scope of Stop Weakening in Argentine Spanish"(PDF),Selected Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology,Somerville, Massachusetts: Cascadilla Proceedings, pp. 100–114,ISBN978-1-57473-438-6
• Herrero de Haro, Alfredo; Hajek, John (2020), "Eastern Andalusian Spanish",Journal of the International Phonetic Association,52:1–22,doi:10.1017/S0025100320000146,S2CID229484009
• Monroy, Rafael; Hernández-Campoy, Juan Manuel (2015),"Murcian Spanish"(PDF),Journal of the International Phonetic Association,45(2): 229–240,doi:10.1017/S0025100314000231
• Otero, Carlos P. (1986), "A unified metrical account of Spanish stress", in Contreras, Heles; Newmeyer, Frederick J. (eds.),A Festschrift for Sol Saporta,Seattle: Noit Amrofer, pp. 299–332
• Roca, Iggy (1990a), "Diachrony and synchrony in word stress",Journal of Linguistics,26(1): 133–164,doi:10.1017/S0022226700014456,S2CID146651226
• Roca, Iggy (1990b), "Morphology and verbal stress in Spanish",Probus,2(3): 321–350,doi:10.1515/prbs.1990.2.3.321,S2CID170933483
• Roca, Iggy (1992), "On the sources of word prosody",Phonology,9(2): 267–287,doi:10.1017/S0952675700001615,JSTOR4420057,S2CID57072569
• Simonet, Miquel; Rohena-Madrazo, Marcos; Paz, Mercedes (2008), Colantoni, Laura; Steele, Jeffrey (eds.),"Preliminary Evidence for Incomplete Neutralization of Coda Liquids in Puerto Rican Spanish"(PDF),Selected Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology,pp. 72–86,ISBN978-1-57473-424-9

External links

• Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: Castilian Spanish– audio samples