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CHAPTER 1
Contrastive Analysis between Spanish and English
RAQUEL T. ANDERSON and JOSÉ G. CENTENO
Knowledge of typical and disordered communication profiles in speakers of different languages is imperative in linguistically diverse clinical contexts. Particularly, in the multilingual scenario of the USA, in which English is the majority language, cross-linguistic comparison of communication skills in speakers of languages other than English has both theoretical and clinical value in monolingual and bilingual situations. Theoretically speaking, because theoretical accounts have largely been based on English speakers, cross-linguistic data allow speech-language investigators and practitioners to assess the suitability of English-based proposals as explanatory accounts of communication performance in speakers of other languages (Leonard, 1996; Paradis, 2001; see Anderson, Ch. 6, this volume). Clinically, cross-linguistic knowledge enhances the accuracy of both diagnostic interpretation and intervention design. Yet, realistic cross-linguistic analysis and interpretation will not be possible without understanding pertinent linguistic features of the languages being discussed.
The purpose of the present chapter is to provide the reader with an overview of the linguistic features of the Spanish language, focusing mainly on its phonological, morphological, and syntactic aspects. Because we assume that the reader will be familiar with the linguistic descriptions of English, in order to enhance the understanding of data from Spanish monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual populations reported in this book, Spanish will be discussed as it compares to English.
The chapter will be divided into three main sections: phonology, morphology, and syntax. Each section will discuss how the particular features of the Spanish language differ from or are similar to those of English. The first section will describe the Spanish phonological system in terms of the general consonant inventory, the vowel system, and syllable structure. The second section will discuss Spanish morphology, particularly focusing on inflectional properties of nouns, verbs, and pronouns. The third section will focus on Spanish syntactic structure to describe word order structure and its variability, and structural aspects of wh- questions, negative formation, and use of complex sentences in Spanish.
Throughout the chapter, our discussions will summarize important descriptive features of the three target areas and will provide additional sources for more theory-driven accounts of the relevant aspects. Our discussions assume the reader has basic knowledge of the terminology used, as an introduction to phonological, morphological, and syntactic theory is beyond the scope of this chapter. Finally, because Spanish speakers in the USA primarily are of Latin American ancestry, dialectal examples provided in this chapter will be based on Latin American Spanish varieties. In particular, we will survey dialectal differences in pronunciation because this is the area of most variation, among the most frequently cited linguistic areas of Spanish dialectal variation, namely, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation (see Zentella, 1997).
Phonology
This section discusses the main characteristics of Spanish phonology, namely, the general consonant inventory, the vowel system, and syllable structure. A summary of the Spanish consonant system is presented in Table 1.1. Regarding dialectal variation, it is important for the reader to be aware that Spanish dialects mainly differ with respect to consonant production, thus not all sounds represented in the table are produced by all speakers, or produced in similar ways across syllabic contexts. In this section, particular production patterns of Spanish consonants and vowels will also be discussed, as they contrast to English.
Plosives
Like English, Spanish has three voiceless – /p, t, k/ – and three voiced – /b, d, 6/ – plosives. Although these appear to parallel the stops in English, there are three major differences in how they are produced. The first difference concerns the distinction between voiced–voiceless phonemes, as signaled by differences in voice onset time (VOT). Plosive consonants are produced by having complete blockage of the airstream, followed by a small burst of sound when the articulators are separated (Mackenzie, 2001). The moment when the voicing starts in the following voiced segment is referred to as VOT. Three VOTs have been described in the literature. Stops can be prevoiced, meaning that voicing (i.e. vocal fold vibration) occurs prior to the release of the articulators (e.g. [6]). They can also be produced with voicing initiated at the moment the burst of sound occurs (e.g. unaspirated stop – [k]). Finally, voicing can occur after the articulators are released (e.g. aspirated plosive – [kh]). This difference in VOT impacts how phonemes are identified in the language. In English, the difference between voiced and voiceless plosives is established between aspirated plosive and unaspirated plosive. Spanish, on the other hand, identifies a voiceless plosive as one that is unaspirated and a voiced plosive as one that is pre-voiced. Aspirated plosives are not part of its consonant inventory.
A second difference in the production of plosives pertains to place of articulation of the phonemes /d, t/. In English, tongue placement for the production of these sounds is alveolar, while in Spanish, it is dental. The final difference concerns the production of the Spanish voiced plosives /b, d, G/. By a process referred to as spirantization (Ortega-Llebaria, 2004), these sounds are produced as voiced fricatives in the same place of articulation when they occur in intervocalic position. Thus, each voiced plosive has a voiced fricative allophone, [β, ð, y]], respectively. For example, the word cubo 'bucket' would be produced as [kuβo], the word todo 'all' as [toðo], and the word soga 'rope' as [soya].
Fricatives
Spanish and English differ significantly with respect to their fricative consonantal inventory. They share the following fricative sounds: /f, ð, s, h/. In addition, some peninsular Spanish dialects also have /θ/ as part of their fricative inventory (Mackenzie, 2001), a sound also present in English. Within these shared sounds, some differences are worth noting. First, /ð/, while phonemic in English, is an allophonic variant of /d/ in Spanish. In addition, /h/, while used in many dialects of Spanish, especially in the Americas, is not present in some peninsular dialects, as well as others in Latin America (e.g. some Mexican dialects) (Canfield, 1981). Instead, the velar fricative /x/ is used. Thus, the word caja 'box' may be realized as either [kaha] or [kaxa], depending on the speaker.
Other cross-language differences are worth noting. First, English presents with a larger number of fricative sounds that are phonemic, as for example /v, z, ∫, [??]/. Some of these sounds do occur in some Spanish dialects, but as allophonic variants of Spanish phonemes. For example, in some Latin American dialects (e.g. El Salvador) and in central dialects of Spain, /s/ may be realized as [z] when it precedes a voiced consonant, as in the word mismo 'same' (Canfield, 1981; Mackenzie, 2001). As mentioned in the discussion of plosives, the Spanish sound inventory includes two fricative sounds that are not part of the English system, [β, y]].
Nasals
Spanish has three nasal phonemes: /m/ (madre 'mother', cama 'bed'), /n/ (nido 'nest', cana 'gray hair'), and /D/ (cana 'cane', sueno 'dream'), the latter occurring mainly in intervocalic position. When nasals occur before consonants, they undergo a process of neutralization, where the place of articulation of the following sound influences how the nasal sound is produced (Mackenzie, 2001). As a result, the pattern is one of assimilation, where the nasal becomes more similar to the following consonant. In these contexts, the place of articulation of the nasal sound is the same as that of the consonant that follows it. For example, the word énfasis 'emphasis' in Spanish is realized as [emfasis], and the word pongo 'I put' as [pongo].
Affricates
Like English, Spanish has the affricate sound /t∫/ (e.g. chispa 'spark', coche 'car'). Some Spanish varieties, such as those spoken in the Caribbean (Canfield, 1981) also have the palato-alveolar voiced affricate /d[??]/ as part of their sound systems. In these dialects, this sound mainly occurs in word initial position (though it can be produced in intervocalic position, as well), while the palatal glide /j/ is used mainly in intervocalic position. Other Latin American dialects, such as in Uruguay and Argentina, also include the palatal voiced fricative /[??]/ where other dialects use /d[??]/ or /j/. Furthermore, other Spanish dialects, especially those in Latin America, as in Bolivia, use the lateral palatal /[??]/. For example, a word such as lluvia 'rain' can be realized, depending on the speaker, as [d[??]uβja], [[??]uβja], [juβja], or [fuβja].
Liquids
Liquid phonemes in Spanish consist of three alveolar sounds: the lateral /l/, the flap (tap) /f/, and the trill /r/. The lateral phoneme occurs in any syllable position, as for example [lobo] (lobo 'wolf'), [kola] (cola 'tail'), and [asul] (azul 'blue'). The flap appears in both intervocalic (e.g. [kafa] – cara 'face'), and postvocalic or syllable final position (e.g. [afbol] – árbol 'tree', [maf] – mar ' sea'). Although this sound is not considered to be part of the English sound system, it does occur as a variant of /t/ in intervocalic position in some American English dialects, as in the words 'butter' and 'letter' or in the homophonous 'writer' and 'rider'. The trill /r/ is produced in syllable-initial and in intervocalic position, as in the words [ropa] (ropa 'clothes') and [karo] (carro 'car').
Vowels
In contrast to English, the Spanish vowel inventory is small, consisting of five primary vowels. These include two front vowels, /i, e/, and three back vowels /a, o, u/. All vowels in Spanish are described as tense. This pattern also contrasts with English, where both tense and lax vowels are present. As mentioned previously, most of the dialectal differences in Spanish occur in the production of consonants. Nevertheless, some differences have been reported in the use of vowels by different Spanish speakers, sometimes even within a broad dialectal group, as for example Puerto Rican Spanish (Navarro Tomás, 1974). Finally, Spanish has a considerable number of diphthongs. Some of them also are found in English, such as /ai/ (baile 'dance', eye), /ei/ (ley 'law', lay), and /[??]/ (hoy 'today', boy), whereas others are not /io/ (labio 'lip'), /ia/ (sucia 'dirty'), /eu/ (deuda 'debt') (Qüilis & Fernández, 1985).
Syllable structure
A summary of the various Spanish syllable types is presented in Table 1.2. Various patterns are worth noting. The most frequent syllable structure in Spanish is that of a consonant (C) and a vowel (V); thus, most syllables are considered open (i.e. ending in a vowel with no coda). Groups of consonants occurring within a syllable consist of a plosive (i.e. /p, b, t, d, k, g/) or a fricative (i.e. /f, β, ð, y]/) and a liquid sound. These occur in prevocalic and in intervocalic position, as in words such as grande 'big', letra 'letter', cofre 'treasure chest', and sable 'sable'. Unlike in English, three-consonant sequences are not permitted within the same syllable, nor is [s] + consonant sequence within the same syllable (e.g. escuela 'school'). Other combinations occurring in Spanish consist of a glide + vowel (e.g. suave 'soft', miel 'honey') or a vowel + glide (e.g. jaula 'cage', vaina 'pod'). These have traditionally been described in Spanish as diphthongs, as described above.
Morphology
This section discusses inflectional features pertinent to noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP) morphology, and pronominal morphology in Spanish. Unlike English, Spanish is a highly inflected language. English has eight inflectional affixes (bound grammatical morphemes): plural (boys), possessive (boy's), comparative (bigger), superlative (biggest), present (closes), past (closed), past participle (closed), and present participle (closing) (Parker & Riley, 2000; Tserdanelis & Wong, 2004); and a limited set for pronouns (he, him, his, etc.). In contrast, Spanish has multiple inflectional affixes to indicate a variety of syntactic and semantic functions at both NP and VP levels, and for pronoun cases.
Noun phrase
Spanish has a number of inflectional features at the NP level beyond those in English. While English nouns do not receive gender markings (except for some rare circumstances: prior/prioress, actor/actress) but have plural markers, Spanish nouns are marked for both grammatical gender and number. Spanish nouns typically include feminine {a} or masculine {o} markers. However, there are exceptions to this pattern (e.g. flor [feminine] 'flower', mano [feminine] 'hand', guardia [masculine] 'guard'). Regarding number, the plural marker {-s} has two context-determined allomorphs. The morpheme {-s} is attached to nouns that end in a vowel (casa 'house', casas 'houses'), and the morpheme {-es} is appended to nouns ending in a consonant (camión 'truck', camiones 'trucks').
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Excerpted from "Communication Disorders in Spanish Speakers"
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Copyright © 2007 José G. Centeno, Raquel T. Anderson, Loraine K. Obler and the authors of individual chapters.
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