Abstract:
Although the normal realization of s in a variety of Spanish spoken in the Eastern region of the Dominican Republic is as a laminal sound, when preceded by a liquid consonant, it surfaces as an apical allophone. An analysis couched within the frameworks of Optimality Theory and Correspondence is proposed, which accounts for the emergence of apical s in terms of the interaction between faithfulness constraints requiring the identity of input and output forms, and an alignment constraint, ALIGN-C(Place of articulation), requiring that the place features of every consonant be aligned with the left edge of a syllable. In addition to ALIGN-C(Place), a markedness constraint against geminate sibilant fricatives is proposed, based on the articulatory complexity of this sound class. This principle is responsible for the fact that liquid + s sequences are the only consonant clusters in which a syllable-final liquid does not undergo total assimilation to the following consonant, but becomes the trigger of assimilation, thereby causing the following s to become apical.
