Velar Palatalization: A Cross-Dialectic Study of Chilean, Mexican, and Castilian Spanish

Abstract

Velar stops, and velar fricatives may become palatalized before front vowels in the dialects of Chile and Mexico, and palatalized before /a/, which has been fronted, in Castilian Spanish. These sound changes are fairly common in the world's languages, but research proves that it is not certain under which circumstances these sound changes take place and to what extent in each dialect. Acoustic data is provided in support of the hypothesis that Chilean Spanish palatalizes in more environments than the other two dialects, although Castilian may palatalize in different environments than the other two dialects due to a historical shift in the Gallo-romance languages (before front vowels and /a/).