Cover not available

In:Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain
Edited by Rajiv Rao
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 28] 2020
► pp. 227–262

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 9
The glottal stop in Guaraní and Paraguayan Spanish

 | Western Washington University
 | National University of Itapúa
Published online: 6 August 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.28.09gyn
Abstract
This study documents the use of [ʔ] in Paraguay, analyzing its distribution among four phonetic contexts: word-internal (Guaraní), phrase-initial (Guaraní and Spanish), synalepha (Guaraní and Spanish), and linking (Spanish). In each context, [ʔ]’s distribution is analyzed by following stress and vowel. Stress favors retention of word-internal [ʔ] in Guaraní, phrase-initial [ʔ] in Spanish and epenthetic [ʔ] in Guaraní, while it disfavors use of [ʔ] in Spanish synalepha. The vowels [e] and [i] suppress word-internal and prothetic [ʔ] in Guaraní, and Spanish synalepha with [ʔ], whereas [o] and [u] suppress Spanish prothesis and epenthesis of [ʔ] for synalepha. The results suggest that, in this study of fluent bilinguals, [ʔ] in Spanish is the result of convergence rather than second language transfer.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Relevant previous research
  • 3.Study methodology and sample characteristics
  • 4.Results of the analysis of the Guaraní and Spanish prompts
    • 4.1Non-phonetic linguistic features of the prompts
    • 4.2Distribution of [ʔ] (Guaraní and Spanish prompts)
      • 4.2.1/V.ʔV/ (Guaraní prompt)
      • 4.2.2Phrase-initial [ǀV] (Guaraní and Spanish prompts)
        • 4.2.2.1Phrase-initial [ǀV] (Guaraní prompt)
        • 4.2.2.2Phrase-initial [ǀV] (Spanish prompt)
      • 4.2.3Comparison of phrase-initial [ǀV] and [ˈǀV] (Spanish and Guaraní prompts)
    • 4.3Resolution of [V.+V] (Guaraní and Spanish prompts)
      • 4.3.1Resolution of [V.+V] and [V.+ˈV] (Guaraní prompt)
      • 4.3.2Resolution of [V.+V] (Spanish prompt)
      • 4.3.3Comparison of resolution of [V.+V] (Spanish and Guaraní prompts)
    • 4.4[V.C+V] (Spanish prompt)
  • 5.Results of the analysis of the Guaraní and Spanish corpora
    • 5.1Non-phonetic linguistic features of the corpus (n = 22)
    • 5.2Distribution of [ʔ] (Guaraní and Spanish corpora)
      • 5.2.1[V.ʔV] (Guaraní corpus)
      • 5.2.2Phrase-initial [ǀV] (Guaraní and Spanish corpora, n = 22)
        • 5.2.2.1Phrase-initial [ǀV] (Guaraní corpus, n = 22)
        • 5.2.2.2Phrase-initial [ǀV] (Spanish corpus, n = 22)
      • 5.2.3Comparison of phrase-initial [ǀV] and [ˈǀV] (Spanish and Guaraní corpora, n = 22)
    • 5.3Resolution of [V.+V] (Guaraní and Spanish corpora, n = 22)
      • 5.3.1Resolution of [V.+V] and [V.+ˈV] (Guaraní corpus, n = 22)
      • 5.3.2Resolution of [V.+V] (Spanish corpus, n = 22)
      • 5.3.3Comparison of resolution of [V.+V] (Spanish and Guaraní corpora, n = 22)
    • 5.4[V.C+V] (Spanish corpus, n = 22)
    • 5.5Age and production of [ʔ] in Spanish
  • 6.Summary and discussion
    • 6.1Summary
    • 6.2Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion: General implications for the field of Spanish contact linguistics
  • References
  • Appendix
References (44)
References
Ahrens, B. (2005). Analysing prosody in simultaneous interpreting: Difficulties and possible solutions. Retrieved from <[URL]> (19 February, 2020).
Bakker, D., Gómez Rendón, J., & Hekking, E. (2008). Spanish meets Guaraní, Otomí, and Quichua: A multilingual confrontation. In T. Stolz, D. Bakker, & R. Salas Palomo (Eds.), Aspects of language contact: New theoretical, methodological and empirical findings with special focus on Romancisation processes (pp. 165–238). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Casali, R. F. (2011). Hiatus resolution. In M. van Oostendorp, C. J. Ewen, E. Hume, & K. Rice (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to phonology (pp. 1434–1460). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cassano, P. V. (1973). The substrate theory in relation to the bilingualism of Paraguay: Problems and findings. Anthropological Linguistics, 15, 406–426.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, W. (1980). The pear stories: Cognitive, cultural, and linguistic aspects of narrative production. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chappell, W. (2015). Linguistic factors conditioning glottal constriction in Nicaraguan Spanish. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 27(2), 1–42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Granda, G. (1996). Interferencia y convergencia sintácticas e isogramatismo amplio en el español paraguayo [Syntactic interference and convergence and widespread isogrammatism in Paraguayan Spanish]. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 117, 63–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dietrich, W., Thun, H., Symeonidis, H., & Aquino, A. (Eds.). (2009). Átlas Lingüístico Guaraní-Románico (ALGR-L), Tomo I Léxico-Cuerpo Humano. Kiel: Westensee-Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du Bois, J. W. (2006). Transcription convention updates. Retrieved from <[URL]> (19 February, 2020).
Fasold, R. (1984). The sociolinguistics of society. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fishman, J. (1967). Bilingualism with and without diglossia; Diglossia with and without bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues, 23(2), 29–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Floyd, M. B. (1990). Sentence complexity and clause subordination in children’s Spanish. Hispania, 73(2), 488–497. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gregores, E., & Suárez, J. A. (1967). A description of colloquial Guaraní (Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 27). The Hague: Mouton & Co. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gynan, S. N. (1998a). Attitudinal dimensions of Guaraní-Spanish bilingualism in Paraguay. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 17(2), 35–59.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1998b). El reto de la diglosia para la planificación lingüística en el Paraguay. Hispanic Linguistics, 10(2), 42–83.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1998c) Migration patterns and language maintenance in Paraguay. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2(2), 259–270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2001). Language planning and policy in Paraguay. Current Issues in Language Planning, 2(1), 53–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). The language situation in Paraguay: An update. In R. B. Baldauf Jr & R. B. Kaplan (Eds.), Language planning and policy in Latin America, Vol. 1: Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay (pp. 284–301). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). Spanish in contact with Guaraní. In M. Díaz-Campos (ed.), Handbook of Hispanic sociolinguistics (pp. 353–373). Cambridge: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). Linguistic demography and attitudinal dimensions of intergenerational transmission of Guaraní and Spanish in Paraguay. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 30(1), 57–94.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Morphological inventory of Guaraní. In B. Estigarribia & J. Pinto (Eds.), Guaraní linguistics in the 21st century (pp. 86–130). Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gynan, S. N., López Almada, E. L., Lugo Bracho, C. M., & Mansfeld de Agüero, M. E. (2015). The formal Guaraní and Spanish of Paraguayan Bilinguals. In S. Sessarego & M. González-Rivera (Eds.), New perspectives on Hispanic contact linguistics in the Americas (pp. 69–98). Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hualde, J. I. (2005). The sounds of Spanish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunt, K. W. (1965). Grammatical structures written at three grade levels. Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klee, C., & Lynch, A. (2009). El español en contacto con otras lenguas. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehmann, C. (2004). Interlinear morphemic glosses. Retrieved from <[URL]> (19 February, 2020).
Lipski, J. (2004). El español de América (3rd ed.). London: Cátedra lingüística.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López Almada, E. L. (2011). La medición de competencia lingüística en guaraní (Unpublished senior thesis). National University of Itapúa, Encarnación, Itapúa, Paraguay.
Lugo Bracho, C. (2008). Las interferencias léxicas del castellano en el guaraní (Unpublished senior thesis). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Asunción, Asunción, Paraguay.
McCarthy, J. J. (2008). Doing optimality theory: Applying theory to data. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Melià, B. (1992). La lengua guaraní del Paraguay. Madrid: Editorial Mapfre.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michnowicz, J., & Kagan, L. (2016). On the glottal stop in Yucatan Spanish. In S. Sessarego & F. Tejedo-Herrero (Eds.), Spanish language and sociolinguistic analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Navarro Tomás, T. (1991). Manual de pronunciación española (25th ed.). Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Odlin, T. (1989) Language transfer: Cross-linguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paraguay [MEC]. (2006). La educación bilingüe en la reforma educativa paraguaya. Asunción, Paraguay.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pruñonosa, M. (2000). Algunos rasgos fónicos de interferencia del guaraní en el español del Paraguay. In J. Calvo Pérez (Ed.), Teoría y práctica del contacto: El español de América en el candelero (pp. 113–122). Frankfurt/Madrid: Vervuert/Iberoamericana. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rose, R. L. (1998). The communicative value of filled pauses in spontaneous speech (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Birmingham, UK.
Sanicky, C. (1989). Las vocales en contacto en el habla de Misiones, Argentina. Hispania, 72(3), 700–704. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Solé, Y. (1991). The Guaraní-Spanish situation. The Georgetown University Journal of Language and Linguistics, 2, 297–348.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1995). Language, nationalism and ethnicity in the Americas. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 116(1), 111–138.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thon, S. (1989). The glottal stop in the Spanish spoken in Corrientes, Argentina. Hispanic Linguistics, 3(1–2), 199–218.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trawick, S., & Michnowicz, J. (2019). Glottal insertion before vowel-initial words in the Spanish of Asunción, Paraguay. In G. Thompson & S. Alvord (Eds.), Contact, community, and connections: Current approaches to Spanish in multilingual populations, (pp. 147–174). Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Von Gleich, U. (1993). Paraguay – país bilingüe modelo: ¿del mito a la realidad? Pueblos Indígenas y Educación, 27–28, 111–131.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

O'Rourke, Erin & Jose Elias‐Ulloa
2025. La variación fonológica del español en contacto con las lenguas indígenas de Sudamérica. In Enciclopedia concisa de los dialectos del español en el mundo, ► pp. 477 ff. DOI logo
Repiso Puigdelliura, Gemma
2025. Effects of language dominance in Catalan-Spanish-English trilinguals' vowel-initial glottal marking: A Principal Components Analysis approach. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 10:1 DOI logo
Repiso-Puigdelliura, Gemma
2021. Empty onset repairs in the semi-spontaneous speech of Spanish child and adult heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism 25:5 ► pp. 1311 ff. DOI logo
Repiso-Puigdelliura, Gemma
2024. Glottalizing at word junctures: Exploring bidirectional transfer in child and adult Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 27:3 ► pp. 350 ff. DOI logo
Pešková, Andrea
2023. In the Echoes of Guarani: Exploring the Intonation of Statements in Paraguayan Spanish. Languages 9:1 ► pp. 12 ff. DOI logo
Pešková, Andrea
2024. Intonational and Syntactic Innovations in a Language Contact Situation: An Explorative Study of Yes/No Questions in Paraguayan Guarani–Spanish Bilinguals. Language and Speech 67:2 ► pp. 561 ff. DOI logo
González, Carolina, Christine Weissglass & Daniel Bates
2022. Creaky Voice and Prosodic Boundaries in Spanish: An Acoustic Study. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 15:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Pinta, Justin
2022. Gender Agreement in Correntino Spanish. Journal of Language Contact 14:3 ► pp. 609 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue