Sociolinguistic

Studies

ISSN: 1750-8649 (print)

ISSN: 1750-8657 (online)

Article

Rhotacism in Spanish and its

decline in Ciudad Real (Spain):
A case study of a change in progress nearing
completion
Marko Kapovi
Abstract
This paper begins with an examination of rhotacism as a phonetic process and the
conditioning factors that govern its occurrence. Its importance among Spanish varieties and
its place within the syllable-nal s weakening continuum are also considered. Next we turn to
the gradual disappearance of this phenomenon in Ciudad Real (Spain), using both apparent
time inferences and real time evidence. The results from our investigation show a somewhat
atypical change from below and an interesting development of the syllable-nal s weakening
process; namely, rhotacism is not replaced by the standard canonical form but rather gives
way to a more advanced form of weakening. This implies that, although the standard variant
has shown complete stability during the last century, the weakening process is progressing
among the non-standard allophones. From a methodological point of view, this study has
revealed the importance of analyzing different individual contexts in which the syllable-nal
s can appear, since global data can conceal some important patterns.
KEYWORDS:

RHOTACISM, SYLLABLE-FINAL S, SPANISH, CHANGE IN PROGRESS

Affiliation
University of Zadar, Croatia
email: makapovic@unizd.hr

SOLS VOL 9.4 2015

399419
2015, EQUINOX PUBLISHING

doi : 10.1558/sols.v9i4.23975

400

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

1 Rhotacism as a phonetic process

Rhotacism is dened by Trask (1996:310) as any phonological process in which
another segment develops into a rhotic. The segments involved in this kind of
change are typically /s/, /z/, //, /n/, /t/ and /d/ (Catford, 2001:178180; Kapovi,
2008:176178; Painter, 2011:910), and these different types of rhotacism have
been attested in numerous languages of the world such as Latin, Umbrian,
Faliscan, various Greek dialects, all Germanic languages except Gothic,1
Armenian, Albanian, Aramaic, Croatian, Slovenian, Sanskrit, Proto-Dravidian,
Finnish, Lappish and Georgian (Catford, 2001:178180; Kapovi, 2008:176178;
Lorenzo Vsquez, 1975:120121; Sol, 1992: 260) as well as in multiple Romance
varieties like Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, French, Picard, Provenal, some
Italian dialects and dialects of Sardinian (Lorenzo Vsquez, 1975:121129, 135
136). In this paper we will be dealing with the rhotacism in Spanish which
involves the pronunciation of syllable-nal s as [r]2 (for example, los dos>lor dos).
Generally speaking, this kind of rhotacism has been attested in numerous
varieties of Spanish, both European and American.3 However, in most of these
dialects it is treated as a dialectal curiosity, while it is only in Castilian varieties
that this phenomenon has received more attention and has been precisely
quantied.4 This is the case in the studies of the variety of Getafe (Martn
Butragueo, 1995), La Jara (Paredes Garca, 2001) and Ciudad Real (Kapovi,
2014). In their respective studies of the dialect of Toledo, Molina Martos (1991:
302303) and Calero Fernndez (1993:103) both register this phenomenon
(Molina Martos even provides abundant examples), but they decide to compute
its occurrences together with the assimilations, although the reasons for considering rhotacism a kind of assimilation remain obscure. Blanco Canales
(2004:163) and Gil Pea (2006:27) follow the same procedure in their respective
studies of Alcal de Henares and the Madrid neighbourhood of Salamanca, while
Momcilovic (2009) in her study of the Madrid variety fails to make a mention of
it. It is reasonable to suppose that these authors decided to include rhotacism
within assimilations because they did not consider it signicant enough to be
studied separately. At a rst glance, this might seem reasonable since globally
Martn Butragueo (1995:18) and Kapovi (2014:77) only register 0.61% and
1.24% of rhotacisms in Getafe and Ciudad Real respectively.5 However, when
specic contexts are taken into account, this allophone acquires much more
prominence. In Getafe (Martn Butragueo, 1995:27) in front of /b, d, g, y/
syllable-nal s is rhotacized in 7.47% of the cases, while in Ciudad Real (Kapovi
2014:97), in its most favourable context, word-nally before /d/, [r] appears in as
many as 19.74% of the cases.6 The same contexts, /d/ and //, are the most
conducive to the occurrence of the rhotic in La Jara as well.7 These data show that

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

401

the allophone in question, although contextually very limited, is relevant and that
the failure to take into account the individual preconsonantal contexts is what can
make it seem marginal. Judging by the examples of rhotacism registered in Molina
Martos (1991: 303), which in roughly 90% of the cases are found in the context
/s/+/d/ as well, we can conclude that rhotacism in Castilian Spanish seems to be
conditioned in a similar fashion, and that, had sufcient attention been paid to
the specic preconsonantal contexts, results comparable to those in Martn
Butragueo (1995), Paredes Garca (2001) and Kapovi (2014) would probably
have been recorded.8
As regards the phonetic mechanism that governs this change, Sol (1992:262)
describes it in the following way:
In fast connected speech when aiming at a very narrow constriction at the
alveolar ridge for the frication of [z] (i) a fast gesture of the articulators
might cause the tongue to slightly touch the centre of the alveolar ridge as
for []; furthermore, (ii) the constriction for the frication at the alveolar
ridge for [z] might not be maintained () and [z] might be cued by a rapid
movement of the tongue towards the alveolar ridge, resulting in an
articulation close to the ballistic gesture for a tap.9

Sol (1992:263) complements this articulatory explanation with a perceptual one,

sustaining that the variety of the resulting rhotics in different languages cannot be
explained by articulatory factors alone10 but rather by means of a posterior
phonological reinterpretation of these phonetic segments; once the resulting
sound is perceived as the phoneme /r/ it is typically realized as the prevailing
rhotic form in a specic language. Sol (1992:263), by means of a perceptual
experiment, goes on to show that the four sibilant fricatives in some ltered
conditions can be perceived as rhotics. Further perceptual evidence for both
Catalan and Spanish is found in Romero (2001, 2008), where this author shows
that a simple decrease in the duration of the sibilant is enough to induce the
percept of /r/. These data demonstrate very clearly the articulatory and perceptual
similarities between alveolar sibilants and rhotics, and provide a good explanation
of this phenomenon both synchronically and diachronically.
With regard to syllable position, Sol (2010) offers experimental evidence which
conrms that fricatives are more prone to weakening in coda positions. She nds
that the audible turbulence necessary for the perception of fricatives11 is more
difcult to achieve syllable-nally, with her results (2010:302) pointing to a reduced
oral gesture syllable-nally leading to a lower oral pressure build-up, a lower
velocity of air through the oral constriction, and a less intense frication. Additionally, because the rate of pressure build-up is slower, coda fricatives also exhibit
a delayed onset of frication and thus may result in a shorter fricative which,
preconsonantally, is more likely to be affected by overlapping gestures.

402

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

This explains the routine weakening of syllable-nal s in numerous Spanish

dialects. It occurs in all possible contexts (preconsonantally, prevocalically and
prepausally),12 and surfaces in the form of rhotacism, aspiration, assimilation or
elision.13 The specicity of rhotacism and assimilation is that these phenomena
appear only preconsonantally. Furthermore, while assimilation can be found in
various preconsonantal contexts, rhotacism is much more restricted in that
respect,14 and, as has already been observed, appears in Ciudad Real only before /d/
and //.15 Rodrguez-Castellano (1952:95), Grifn (1965:410), Lorenzo Vsquez
(1975:130), Recasens (2002:359) and Sol (2010:290) insist on the appearance of
rhotacism before voiced consonants, after previous sonorization, but do not discuss
particular contexts for its occurrence.16 Recasens (2002:342) points out that
rhotacism may be favoured by the apicality of the following consonant, which
could explain the frequency of rhotacism before //. Sol (2010:302) also
concludes in a similar fashion:
when lingual fricatives are followed by segments involving conicting
congurations of the tongue-tip/dorsum (e.g., /s z /+trilled /r/, /s/+//,
/s/+/l/), anticipatory tongue gestures for C2 may perturb the critical
articulatory conguration (i.e., cross-sectional area of constriction) and/or
temporal requirements for the generation of turbulence, and the fricative
may be weakened or lost.

Although not referred to explicitly in the cited paragraph, the particular frequency
of rhotacism before /d/ might be explained in a similar fashion as for the above
mentioned sequences.
According to Grifn (1965:410), Lorenzo Vsquez (1975:136), Recasens
(2002:342) and Sol (1992:262; 2010:303), another signicant factor inuencing the
occurrence of rhotacism might be the apicality of the sibilant. Grifn (1965:410),
basing his conclusions on ALPI maps (1962), posits that donde no hay s apical no
hay tampoco rotacismo. The fact, however, that this phenomenon has been
registered in dialects that do not possess an apical s suggests that it is not impossible
for rhotacism to occur with another kind of sibilant, but its frequency in Castile
demonstrates that apical s indeed is the most prone to this kind of weakening.
Regarding the process of the weakening of syllable-nal s as a whole, Alarcos
Llorach (1965[1950]:280) and Penny (2002 [1991]:106107) posit rhotacism as its
rst stage. Painter (2011:14) regards these phenomena as a part of the same
process as well. A plausible mechanism of syllable nal s weakening can thus be
understood as follows: in the rst phase of weakening, in determined contexts,
for different articulatory, aerodynamic and perceptive reasons the frication of
the sibilant may be perceived as a tap or possibly another kind of a rhotic
(desde>derde); a more advanced phase of weakening would be a complete

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

403

deoralization of s, which, once it has been devoid of its supralaryngeal features,

comes to be perceived as a simple aspiration (desde>dehde);17 the next step in the
weakening process is the assimilation of the aspiration with the following phone
(desde>de*de);18 while the ultimate result of the weakening process is a complete
elision or deletion19 of the original sound (desde>dede).20
2 The study
The data used in this paper come from our sociolinguistic study of the variety
spoken in the city of Ciudad Real, capital of the homonymous province in the
Autonomous Community of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). The eldwork for the
study was undertaken in the winter semester of 2011/12. In this investigation,
quota sampling with the same number of informants in each of the cells was
employed. In accordance with this procedure, the population of Ciudad Real was
divided into three age groups (1835, 3655 y 56>), two groups according to the
variable sex/gender, and three groups according to the educational level of the
informant (primary, secondary and tertiary education). In the category primary
education we grouped all informants that have not completed their secondary
education, even though they may have been enrolled in a secondary school (be
it, depending on the age of the subjects and the changes in the Spanish school
system, Bachillerato elemental, Bachillerato unicado polivalente or Educacin
Secundaria Obligatoria). The group secondary education encompasses all those
who obtained their high-school diploma but have not completed any university
studies. Finally, the third category, tertiary education, includes all individuals who
possess a university diploma as well as those who are studying to obtain it at the
moment. Had the latter not been included in this group, it would lack young
university-educated individuals with ages between 18 and 23, 24 years, which is
what we tried to avoid.
In this way 18 subgroups were obtained (for instance, young males with primary
studies, elderly women with high-school education, middle-aged women with
university degrees, etc.), with each of them containing three informants.21
Consequently, the total number of informants was 54, which constitutes a 0.072% of
the Ciudad Real population (of about 75,000 inhabitants). This percentage is almost
three times as high as the minimum (0.025%) recommended in sociolinguistic
literature (Labov, 1966:170171),22 and can be considered representative of the
community in question.
The eligible subjects for our study were all adult inhabitants of Ciudad Real who
were also born in the city or who had moved to the city before the age of three.
People of different origins living in Ciudad Real were not considered suitable since

404

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

they would inevitably display features of their native dialects. Snowball technique or
the friend of a friend method (see for example Milroy and Gordon, 2003:32;
Tagliamonte, 2006:2122) was used to locate subjects, although we also had to visit
retirement homes, adult schools, language schools and different cultural institutions
to reach different classes of informants needed in the study. All the interviews lasted
for about an hour, during which we engaged informants in casual conversation
which we tried to make as informal and relaxed as possible. At the end of each
interview, our subjects read the selected text and word-list out loud and were asked
to provide details on their linguistic background and sociodemographic characteristics (age, sex/gender, education level, profession, salary, their parents and
partners birthplace, time spent away from Ciudad Real etc.). The interviews were
recorded with a quality Olympus digital voice recorder VN-8700PC in silent places
in order to ensure that possible noise contamination was reduced to a minimum.
Different public places such as bars or parks where high noise levels might inuence
the quality of the recordings were not considered appropriate.
Stylistic differences in this investigation were studied according to Labov
(1972:79109). This author proposes that the more attention an individual pays to
their linguistic production, the more they will produce formal styles. The most
common way to register these different styles is by assigning informants different
reading tasks. Thus, a contrast between conversational style (the most informal
one obtained), reading text style (more formal style) and reading word list style
(the most formal one) was achieved.
Due to the enormous quantity of data that was to be analyzed,23 a total of 81,846
tokens of syllable-nal s, phonetic data were coded impressionistically. In order to
guarantee the objectivity of the analysis, a part of the data was controlled and
veried by another expert. In accordance with the conclusions made in the introductory section, ve different realizations of syllable-nal s were coded: [s], the
realization of any kind of sibilant (voiced or voiceless, alveolar or dental), for
example [desde]; [h], any kind of aspiration (glottal, pharyngeal or velar, voiceless
or voiced), for example [dehde]; [*], any kind of complete assimilation with the
following consonant (be it coalescence found for example when alveolar fricative
[s] and bilabial approximant [] produce a voiced or voiceless bilabial fricative []
or [], or a type of gemination when for instance [s]+[l]>[ll] or [l:]), for example
[de*de]; [], elision or the complete absence of any kind of phonic representation
of the original sibilant (although this reduction may sometimes cause elongation
or opening of the preceding vowel), for example [dede]; and [r], any kind of
rhotic sound (tap/ap, approximant or fricative), for example [derde].

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

405

Statistical analyses were carried out with the help of the program Statistica for
Windows (StatSoft, Inc. [2012]. STATISTICA [data analysis software system],
version 11, www.statsoft.com). The program was used to obtain descriptive
statistics, to perform one-directional repeated measures analyses of variance
(ANOVA) and to execute multiple linear regressions. This was, however, not
possible in all the cases, for even though we worked with more than 58 hours of
conversations and transcribed 1,516 instances of syllable-nal s per informant, due
to low frequency of some sequences, full representativeness was not achieved in all
of them. As regards preconsonantal sequences, only ten different contexts were
fully representative, and basic representativeness was achieved in a further four. In
seven more contexts, a basic representativeness on the subgroup level was
achieved, which meant that in these cases only descriptive statistical analysis was
possible, while inferential statistical methods could not be carried out. Basic
representativeness on the subgroup level means that neither the prerequisite for
full representativeness of 30 occurrences per variable per informant nor basic
representativeness of 10 occurrences per variable per informant (compare with
Milroy and Gordon, 2003:164 who follow Guy, 1980, 1993) was achieved, but that
the minimum of ten tokens per variable was attained only on the subgroup level
(each subgroup consisted of three individuals).24 Since in three of the four
contexts in which rhotacism is pertinent (sd, s# and s) only basic representativeness on the subgroup level was achieved, it was only in the fully representative
context s#d that it was possible to perform a multiple linear regression.
3 Disappearance of rhotacism in Ciudad Real as a continuation of
the syllabe-nal s weakening process
The study of changes in progress is most certainly one of the greatest achievements of twentieth-century linguistics. Although this was once believed to be
unachievable (cf. for example Bloomeld, 1933:347 or Hockett, 1958:456457),
the apparent time hypothesis made it possible for linguists to observe linguistic
changes directly (cf. for example Labov, 1994:4373).
In the variety of Ciudad Real, the variable syllable-nal s, when considered in
its totality, seems completely stable, and no evidence of change in progress was
found for either of the three principal allophones (sibilance, aspiration and
elision).25 The other two allophones (rhotacism and assimilation), however, did
show a distribution that points to the existence of a change in progress. It is,
furthermore, very interesting that these two changes are rmly interrelated and
that they have to be accounted for jointly.

406

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

Even though the regression analyses carried out showed that the informants
age was an important predictor for the occurrence of rhotacism even when all
contexts are considered together (p<0.01, R=0.63, R2=0.39, Adjusted R2=0.36,
F(3.50)=10.986),26 it seems more methodologically sound to concentrate solely on
the contexts in which this allophone is most prominent. As has been stated
previously, these are the sequences /s/+/d/ and /s/+//, both word-nally and
word-internally (for example los dos, desde and los cines, doscientos).
Table 1. Rhotacism frequency (%) in Ciudad Real
in four contexts according to age.
1835

3655

56>

s#d
N=4453

3.54

20.38

35.31

sd
N=309

1.19

11.76

26.06

s#
N=384

2.55

10.78

31.77

s
N=211

1.85

9.06

19.94

The data presented in Table 1 are very eloquent and self-explanatory. It can be
observed that in all four contexts it is the third generation, i.e. individuals over 56,
that exhibit the highest percentages of rhotacism; these decline gradually in the
middle generation, while this allophone is practically non-existent and totally
marginal among the youth in Ciudad Real. As far as the contextual distribution is
concerned, rhotacism is more frequent before /d/ than before //, and seems to be
favoured word-nally rather than word-internally.
As we have stated in the previous section, in three of the four contexts in which
rhotacism is pertinent (sd, s# and s) only basic representativeness on the
subgroup level was achieved, and it was only in the context s#d that it was possible
to ascertain statistically, by means of multiple linear regression, that this
difference is signicant, even though the pattern in the other three contexts seems
to be analogous. Seeing that s#d is the only fully representative context, that it is in
this sequence that rhotacism is the most frequent and that in this way the
interpretation of the data will be more straightforward, in the remainder of this
paper our attention will be focused on this particular sequence.

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

407

The regression analysis of the sequence in question shows that of the three
social factors (age, education and sex/gender) only age is a signicant predictor
for the occurrence of rhotacism (p<0.01), while the other two are highly
insignicant (p=0.48 and p=0.62) (R=0.64, R2=0.41, Adjusted R2=0.38,
F(3.50)=11.748). With respect to stylistic variation,27 as can be observed in Table
2, the difference between different styles is signicant.
Table 2. Rhotacism frequency (%) in context s#d according to age and style.
s#d

1835

3655

56>

CONVERSATIONAL STYLE
N=4453

3.54

20.38

35.31

READING TEXT
N=917

0.35

4.25

17.48

The relationship between the two styles is monotonic; the more formal the
context, the less likely it is for the non-standard form to appear. It can also be
observed that the gradual decline in the use of rhotic forms as the age of the
speakers decreases perceived in the conversational style is also present in the more
formal style.
It is very interesting to compare the occurrences of rhotacism with those of
assimilations, since the two allophones are conditioned in the same way, with age
and style as the only signicant predictors of variation (p<0.01, education level
p=0.23, sex/gender p=0.22, R=0.57, R2=0.33, Adjusted R2=0.29, F(3.50)=8.05),
but seem to be moving in an opposite direction.
Table 3. Assimilation frequency (%) in context s#d according to age and style.
s#d

1835

3655

56>

CONVERSATIONAL STYLE
N=4453

40.56

16.94

13.52

READING TEXT
N=917

27.82

7.29

2.68

Everything that was said in the case of rhotacism, stands in the case of
assimilation as well; the only difference between the two allophones is that the
occurrence of rhotacism diminishes among the younger generations, while the
instances of assimilation increase as the age of speakers descends. The relationship
between the two styles is identical in both cases; in the more formal style less non-

408

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

standard forms are used and the differences according to age are maintained.
These data emphatically indicate that we are witnessing a change in progress in
which one non-standard allophone [r] is being substituted by another nonstandard allophone [*].28 The relationship of the allophones of rhotacism and
assimilation according to age and style can be observed in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Occurrences of rhotacism and assimilations according to age and style.

It is good sociolinguistic practice to compare apparent time inferences with some

real time data (cf. Labov, 1972:275276). Given that this investigation is the rst
one that deals with the capital of Ciudad Real, direct comparisons are not
possible. However, the dialect of the province in question, on the other hand, was
the objective of various studies in the past.29 Although useful data on three villages
in the south-eastern part of the province can be found in Alther (1935) and data
for Porzuna and El Robledo in Bedmar Gmez (1992), the primary sources with
which we will compare our results will be two linguistic atlases that encompassed
the entire province of Ciudad Real: Atlas Lingstico de la Pennsula Ibrica
(ALPI) edited in 1962 but whose samples were collected in the early 1930s and
Atlas Lingstico y etnogrco de Castilla-La Mancha (ALECMAN) edited in 2003
with the samples collected in late 1980s-early 1990s. It seems more convenient to
compare our data with those from the atlases than with those dealing with specic
communities, for the simple reason that the atlases contain data from the entire
province. If we take into account that a province capital is its commercial and
administrative centre in which people converge, and whose population is usually
composed of individuals from the neighbouring places which gravitate towards
the centre, it becomes obvious that the language spoken in that kind of a city is in
fact a koine, an amalgamation of different local accents that merge in the capitals
melting pot. In this sense, the variety of a provinces capital does in a way reect
the different local varieties of the province, which is the reason we have decided to

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

409

compute together the data for different points in the province found in the atlases
and then to compare them with the capital. While being far from ideal, this
procedure constitutes the only possibility of making real time comparisons with
our data seeing that no previous studies of the capital had been undertaken.
Another difculty in comparing data from an urban sociolinguistic study and
those from a linguistic atlas arises from a different methodological framework of
the two enterprises. While sociolinguists try to study the social complexity of the
variety under investigation, dialectologists are more concerned with pure
dialectological data and try to nd elderly informants who are the least inuenced
both by education or by contact with the neighbouring dialects and are thus most
likely to employ the genuine form of the variety in question. Having this in
mind, in this paper we will not compare the data from the atlases with the global
data from our investigation, but rather with those proceeding from the least
educated stratum in order to get more commensurable gures.30 Another
methodological difference we have to be aware of is the difference in eliciting
information in sociolinguistic and dialectological studies (free conversation vs.
questionnaires), although this issue can hardly be remedied.
Being conscious of all the difculties the comparison of such different works
entails, we still think that the relation of our data with those from two other points
in time might be fruitful and might help us better understand the process at
hand.31 After observing Table 4, it becomes clear that this is the case; from a
practically categorical solution for the people surveyed for the ALPI (1962), the
rhotacism rates have been steadily declining, falling to about two thirds of the
cases in the nineties and virtually disappearing in the speech of the youngest
generation in our study.32
Table 4. Rhotacism rates in the context s#d in ALPI (1962),
ALECMAN (2003) and Ciudad Real.33
s#d

Rhotacism

ALPI (1934)
N=23

>90%34

ALECMAN (1990)
N=132

68%

Ciudad Real (201112), elementary education, 56>

N=485

31%

Ciudad Real (201112), elementary education, 3655

N=421

20%

Ciudad Real (201112), elementary education, 1835

N=459

0.19%

410

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

Translated into age, this means that from the generations surveyed for the ALPI
(1962), born between 18701890, to the youngest in our investigation, born
between 1975 and 1990, rhotacism has travelled a path from being the virtually
exclusive solution in this position to completely disappearing, as can be observed
in Figure 2.35 According to these data, it can be posited that the rhotic variant
might completely disappear from the dialect of Ciudad Real in the course of the
next fty years. After this period of time, the youngest generation in our study will
be between 68 and 85 years old and will most probably maintain the same low
rates of rhotacism.36 The younger generations of that time, given that they will
have nobody from whom they can acquire the rhotic form, will most probably
lack this allophone in their linguistic repertoire altogether.

Figure 2. Rhotacism in the last hundred years.

A similar distribution to the one we encounter in Ciudad Real, is registered in La

Jara;37 according to Paredes Garca (2001:141) the oldest generations exhibit the
highest rhotacism rates of 38%, its use in the third generation falls to 34%, it
further declines in the second youngest generation to 18% and it is only present in
10% of the cases among the youngest individuals. The tendency towards the
disappearance of the allophone is analogous to the one we nd in Ciudad Real
with the difference that in La Jara rhotacism seems to be favoured by the lowest
classes,38 which could be interpreted as the disappearance of a variant stigmatised
by the upper strata, although more data are required to conrm this inference.
In Ciudad Real, there are no indications as to the stigmatisation of this feature
seeing that there is no evidence for it in its social distribution.39 Also, were this
allophone stigmatised, it would be substituted by the standard form and not by
another non-standard allophone. This change appears to be a change from
below40 in that it does not constitute a change towards a prestigious form nor is it

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

411

favoured by the upper classes. However, the lack of signicance of the variables
sex and social class is atypical for changes from below; according to Labov (1973,
1980, 1990, 2001:147193, 261323; 2006[1966]:199240) a curvilinear pattern of
stratication is expected in these kinds of changes as well as a differentiation
between the sexes at each stage by a value roughly equal to one generation
(1990:242). Our change seems to have come near completion not only without
any overt reaction to it from above, but also without any stratication either by
education or by sex. This might be explained by the fact that the change in
question involves a simple restructuring within the allophonic eld of one
phoneme in one context (s#d),41 which, moreover, does not include the modication of the standard variant that has been stable during the whole process of this
intra-allophonic change.42 The change in itself also has no systematic repercussions whatsoever and it seems to be a simple continuation of the evolutionary
process of syllable-nal s weakening,43 in which we are witnessing the nal days of
the rst weakening stage which is about to be replaced by a more advanced one.44
Since a non-standard allophone is being substituted for another non-standard
allophone, i.e. a non-prestigious form is replaced with another non-prestigious
form, no reaction from above has taken place. Likewise, since the change implies
only two non-standard allophones, it seems that its social signicance is very
scarce and the usual patterns of changes from below (the curvilinear pattern and
the leadership of women in the change) have not emerged as signicant. The
pattern of this change is similar to what Labov (2006:204) has called change
through random drift,45 differing from it only in the fact that the present change
does show signs of stylistic variation. This stylistic variation in itself is a simple
consequence of the awareness of the speakers to these variables status as nonstandard; a shift towards the standard form is perceptible in more formal styles
with a consequent decrease in the occurrence of both non-standard forms. This
means that neither of the two allophones is preferred to the other in more formal
styles, which is logical since neither of them is prestigious. This stylistic treatment
is an expected reaction towards non-standard allophones and does not represent
an awareness of the speakers regarding the change in progress, which, apparently,
has remained below the level of consciousness of the community during the whole
course of its progression.
4 Conclusion
In this paper, rhotacism as a phonetic process, its relevance in Spanish dialects
and its participation in the process of syllable-nal s weakening were examined.
Also, the case of the disappearance of rhotacism in Ciudad Real was analysed.
Both apparent and real-time evidence has shown that this allophone has

412

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

undergone a rapid change during the last century and that at the present moment
this change is nearing completion. The fact that this variant is giving way to
assimilation suggests that this change is part of the evolutionary process of
syllable-nal s weakening in which an initial stage is being replaced by a more
advanced one. Although this change, originating from within the system, is a
change from below, it is an atypical one since it shows no variation according to
social class or sex/gender. The stylistic variation of the variable is explained by the
fact that both the old and the new forms are non-standard, and therefore less
prominent in more formal styles.
From a methodological point of view, it is also important to point out that it is
precisely the two least frequent allophones, rhotacism and assimilation, that show
patterns of a change in progress. The fact that they are marginal when global
results are taken into consideration, makes the study of all the specic contexts in
which syllable-nal s can appear indispensable, because it is only in individual
contexts that we can really appreciate the distribution of these variants. Had we
not proceeded in this way and had these allophones been considered marginal and
computed together with the more frequent variants, as has been the case in some
earlier investigations, the ndings presented in this paper would have been
completely lost. These results also underscore the importance of the phenomenon
of rhotacism in central Spain and the need to take it into consideration in further
research of Castilian varieties.
Notes
1.

2.

3.

In English, for instance, the examples involve the change t/d> both
diachronically (potage>porridge) and synchronically (the tapping of intervocalic
t/d in American English or the change > in the Scottish variety (Catford,
2001:179180).
The concrete phonetic quality of this segment can vary from a tap/ap to a
fricative or an approximant. These nuances, however, are not the focus of this
paper.
According to Grifns (1965:409) analysis of map 72 in ALPI (1962), this
phenomenon has been registered in almost the whole of Central Spain,
excluding only the westernmost part of the provinces of Cceres and Salamanca,
Zamora, almost the whole province of Len, the northernmost part of Palencia
and Burgos, and Navarra. In the east, this isogloss covers whole Castile and
stretches to Albacete, Murcia, Alicante and the Andalusian province of Almera.
In the west it includes the whole province of Ciudad Real and the northeast of
Badajoz. To this we might add that in ALEA, rhotacism is registered in the three
western provinces (Almera, Granada and Jan) albeit quite sporadically
(compare for example map 1673). As far as the American variety is concerned,
Lorenzo Vsquez (1975:132133) notes its presence in Argentina, Mexico,
Colombia, Cuba, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and Ecuador.

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.
10.
11.

12.

13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.

19.

413

To our knowledge, in none of the numerous sociolinguistic studies concerned

with syllable-nal s variation in Andalusia or Spanish America has rhotacism
been quantied as a separate variant.
Paredes Garca (2001:138141) does not provide general percentages for this
allophone; he (2001:139) only points out that in preconsonantal contexts
rhotacism appears in 5% of the cases.
Word-internally before /d/ rhotacism rates are at 13%, and in the other context
favourable for the occurrence of the rhotic, before //, it appears in 15.03%
word-nally and 10.29% word-internally.
Paredes Garca (2001:139). This author does not provide us with the exact
percentages of rhotacism in different contexts, but rather informs us that of all
the occurrences of rhotacism (977) in La Jara, 533 (55%) correspond to the
sequence /s/+/d/, and 399 (41%) to /s/+//. This distribution is very similar to
the one found in Ciudad Real.
For more on the importance of studying different preconsonantal contexts
separately, see chapters I.2.4. and IV.2.3. in Kapovi (2014) as well as Kapovi
(to appear, 2015).
Note that the author here presupposes a previous sonorization of the sibilant.
Recasens (2002:342) agrees with this theory of articulatory undershoot and
subsequent friction loss.
Sol (2010:291) describes the conditions necessary for the generation of audible
turbulence as requiring (i) precise articulatory positioning and shape to form a
normal constriction within a certain critical range [] (ii) creating a difference
in pressure (P) across the constriction for high-velocity airow, which requires
a sufcient rate of ow through the glottis (Ug), and (iii) maintaining the
articulatory and aerodynamic parameters (i.e., constriction size and transglottal
ow) over a certain interval of time. Thus fricatives, particularly sibilant
fricatives, have tight positional, aerodynamic, and time constraints.
Preconsonantal context is without a doubt the one in which the weakening
process begins, while it remains unclear whether it is followed by prepausal or
prevocalic contexts. For more on this issue, see chapter I.2.4. in Kapovi (2014).
Aspiration and elision appear in all syllable-nal s weakening dialects, while
assimilation and rhotacism are sporadic.
Compare for example Table 18 in Kapovi (2014:97).
Rhotacism has, in fact, been noticed in six other contexts in Ciudad Real
(Kapovi, 2014:97), but in none of these does it surpass 0.2% of occurrences.
Recasens, however, offers the following progression: [l], [n], [m] > [d]/[D],
[g]/[].
Compare for example Widdison (1993:55) and Sol (2010:303).
The assimilation can be manifested either as coalescence, registered for example
in situations when alveolar fricative [s] and bilabial approximant [] produce a
voiced or voiceless bilabial fricative [] or [], or as a type of gemination when
for instance [s]+[l]>[ll] or [l:].
This reduction may, however, sometimes cause elongation or opening of the
preceding vowel.

414
20.

21.

22.

23.

24.
25.
26.
27.

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

Recasens (2002:359361) claims that the weakening process need not necessarily
be viewed as a continuum, but rather as a set of different weakening processes
affecting the same segment. His argumentation, however, does not seem
convincing since it is based on a simplistic and erroneous assumption that
aspiration is favoured by following voiceless consonants while in turn rhotacism,
assimilation and elision are favoured by following voiced consonants. The
situation is in reality much more complex as is evidenced for example in Table
18 in Kapovi (2014:97) or in Table 3.10 in Samper Padilla (1990:84); although
aspiration is most common before voiceless /p/ and /k/, deletion is, contrary to
what Recasens has posited, most frequent before voiceless segments /f/ and /x/
in both varieties. In Las Palmas variety, moreover, aspiration is the most
frequent allophone before /m/, /n/, /r/ and /l/; this mere glance at two different
dialects illustrates very plastically that sonority is not the key predictor or
conditioning factor for the occurrence of different allophones. Furthermore,
even if there were a tendency that a certain allophone is more likely to occur in a
determined context (for example, assimilation before voiced consonants), this
would not impede the view of the weakening in question as a continuum; a
continuum with sibilance, aspiration and elision as its principal phases (which
are present in most contexts in all varieties undergoing weakening) and
assimilation and rhotacism as the optional subphases of the same process. The
fact that some allophones are more likely to appear in certain contexts seems
natural (as a kind of non-categorical complementary distribution), but their
distribution is more complex than the one suggested by Recasens and is not
inconsistent with the theory of the weakening continuum.
The number of three informants per cell seems to be ideal for assuring
representativeness without exceedingly increasing the quantity of data to be
processed.
In total, according to the census of 2011, our study includes one in 1,389
speakers. If we were to exclude minors and people living in Ciudad Real who
were not born there, this ratio would be even better.
Such a high quantity of data was needed since in the investigation all the
different linguistic contexts (all the different preconsonantal and prevocalic
sequences as well as the prepausal one) for the appearance of syllable-nal s were
taken into account. This decision is by all means justied since the conclusions
reached in this paper would not have been possible had we not proceeded in the
described fashion.
For more details on representativeness in this investigation, see chapter IV.2.2.
in Kapovi (2014).
See chapter IV.3.3. in Kapovi (2014).
All statistical analyses can be consulted in detail in Appendix III in Kapovi
(2014).
In this case, we will compare only conversational style and reading text style
since in reading word list style there were not enough tokens for each individual
context to be representative.

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

28.

29.
30.

31.

32.

33.
34.
35.

36.
37.

38.

39.

415

[*] is the symbol used for assimilation, because, as it has been explained earlier,
assimilations can manifest themselves in several different ways in different
contexts. In the context s#d, however, the typical assimilated variant was a
sonorous fricative dental [], the result of the amalgamation of the fricative [s]
with the approximant [].
This of course is a consequence of the Spanish dialectological tradition that paid
much more attention to rural varieties, disregarding the urban ones.
As was suggested by reviewer 3, since we have earlier established that education
is not a statistically signicant predictor of rhotacism in our study, we might as
well have used the data for the community as a whole. These indeed would not
differ signicantly from the ones we encounter in Table 4; the rhotacism rates
from the older to the younger generations would be 35.31%20.38%3.54%.
We quantied the data from the atlases in the following fashion: in ALPI (1962),
given that we were unable to consult the maps, but only the questionnaires, all
instances of s#d were analyzed for all survey points. Given that the number of
examples of this context was rather reduced, only an approximate percentage
will be presented. In the case of ALECMAN (2003), we added together all the
instances of this sequence as recorded in the thirty different localities in all ve
relevant maps and calculated the relative frequency of the different allophones.
For the rest of the contexts in which rhotacism is a relevant variant (sd, s#, s),
unfortunately we do not nd any data in ALPI (1962). In ALECMAN (2003) we
do not nd examples of the context sd, whereas the rhotacism rates registered
before the interdental fricative are comparable to those found for the sequence
s#d, 63% word-nally and 70% word-internally. This indicates that the process
of the disappearance of rhotacism is at work in all contexts in which this
phenomenon appears.
The dates in the table correspond to the approximate dates the surveys took
place and not to the edition dates of the atlases.
In fact, rhotacism in ALPI (1962) was not registered in only one of the seven
survey points, Fuencaliente, where the only allophone recorded was assimilation.
In ALPI (1962), each informants age is stated; most of them were born in the
period that appears in the Figure. Garca Mouton and Moreno Fernndez (1993)
state their informants were between 55 and 65. The fact that in our investigation
a few octogenarians were included makes the oldest generation recorded in our
study overlap with the younger ALECMAN (2003) informants.
See for example Chambers (2009[1995]:197).
Note that in this region, as has already been mentioned, the two most favourable
contexts for the occurrence of rhotacism are before /d/ and // (Paredes Garca,
2001:139).
According to the percentages provided by Paredes Garca, the preference of
rhotacism by the lower classes seems obvious (59%41%), while the difference
between men and women is less pronounced and not necessarily conclusive
(53%47%).
The difference between men and women is very small and statistically not
signicant (18.63%20.85%, p=0.62), as well as the difference between the three
education groups (elementary education: 17.06%, secondary education: 21.26%,
tertiary education: 20.9%, p=0.48).

416
40.

41.

42.
43.

44.

45.

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

We agree with Labov (2006:203) that this change would be better labelled
change from within as in from within the system, but the term is well
established by now.
The data we have for the sequence sd, although they cannot be statistically
conrmed, point to an analogous development; in sequences s and s#, the data
suggest that instead of assimilation, which never appears in this context, the
disappearance of rhotacism is followed by the increase of elisions.
See chapter IV.3.3. in Kapovi (2014).
In fact, although as regards the standard variant both apparent and real time
data have shown complete stability during the last century, the restructuring of
the non-standard allophones is not limited to the disappearance of rhotacism
in the context s#d. When data across all contexts are compared, real time gures suggest that the syllable-nal s weakening process has indeed advanced,
although the standard variant has remained intact. This is evidenced by the
increase in elisions as opposed to aspirated variants which can be seen when the
data from the atlases are compared to ours (as evidenced in Table 35 in Kapovi,
2014:129). The increase of elision rates, however, seems to have been stopped
recently, as there are no indications of change in apparent time. For more on
these issues, consult chapter IV.3.3. in Kapovi (2014).
Recasens (2002:359-360) points out that an analogous kind of change, the
substitution of rhotacism with assimilated solutions occurred in Logudorese as
well.
Random here should be taken to imply not socially conditioned, and not
haphazard or unsystematic which is obviously not the case in this situation.

Acknowledgments
The research on which this paper is based was carried out with the support of
Croatian Foundation for Science (Project number: 03.01/207).
About the author
Marko Kapovi is currently employed in the Department of French and
Iberoromance Studies at the University of Zadar, where he teaches courses in
Spanish language and linguistics. His primary research interests include Spanish
sociolinguistics, language variation and change, dialectology and phonetics. In
2014 he completed his PhD titled Anlisis sociolingstico de la variable (s) en el
habla de Ciudad Real and his main publications include Reassessing the inuence
of word position on the variation of Spanish syllable-nal s: Data from Ciudad
Real, Spanish in Context 12(3), and El debilitamiento de la s explosiva en espaol;
extensin geogrca y factores condicionantes, Lingstica espaola actual 37.

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

417

References
Alarcos Llorach, E. (1965) [1950] Fonologa espaola. Madrid: Gredos.
ALECMAN (2003) P. Garca Mouton and F. Moreno Fernndez (dir.) Atlas Lingstico y
etnogrco de Castilla-La Mancha. Universidad de Alcal. Retrieved from
http://www2.uah.es/alecman.
ALPI (1962) Atlas Lingstico de la Pennsula Ibrica I. Fontica. Madrid: Centro Superior
de Investigaciones Cientcas. Retrieved from http://westernlinguistics.ca/alpi/
more_info.php?global_lang=sp.
Alther, A. (1935) Beitrge zur Lautlehre sdspanischer Mundarten. Aarau: Graphische
Werksttten H. R. Sauerlndern & Co.
Bedmar Gmez, M. J. (1992) Progresin de soluciones aspiradas de -s implosiva en la
provincia de Ciudad Real. Actas del II congreso internacional de historia de la lengua
espaola 6170.
Blanco Canales, A. (2004) Estudio sociolingstico de Alcal de Henares. Alcal de Henares:
Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alcal.
Bloomeld, L. (1933) Language. New York: Henry Holt.
Calero Fernndez, Ma. A. (1993) Estudio sociolingstico del habla de Toledo: segmentos
fonolgicos -/s/ y /j/. Lrida: Pags ed.
Catford, J. C. (2001) On Rs, rhotacism, and paleophony. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 31: 171185. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/
S0025100301002018.
Chambers, J. K. (2009) [1995] Sociolinguistic theory. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Garca Mouton, P. and Moreno Fernndez, F. (1993) LALECMAN parmi les atlas
linguistiques espagnols. Golinguistique 5: 217232. Retrieved on August 8 2014 from
http://www.linguas.net/alecman/.
Gil Pea, N. (2006) Estudio sociolingstico de la fontica del madrileo barrio de
Salamanca: la -/s/ en posicin implosiva (2 parte). Espaol Actual 85: 2540.
Grifn, D. (1965) Rotacismo y aspiracin: una nota sobre cronologa dialectal. Boletn de
Filologa. Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Chile 17: 407411.
Guy, G. (1980) Variation in the group and the individual: The case of nal stop deletion. In
W. Labov (ed.) Locating language in time and space 136. New York: Academic Press.
Guy, G. (1993) The quantitative analysis of linguistic variation. In D. R. Preston (ed.)
American Dialect Research 223249. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Hockett, C. (1958) A course in modern linguistics. New York: Macmillan.
Kapovi, Marko (2014) Anlisis sociolingstico de la variable (s) en el habla de Ciudad
Real. Doctoral dissertation, University of Zadar.
Kapovi, Marko (to appear, 2015) Reassessing the inuence of word position on the
variation of Spanish syllable-nal s: Data from Ciudad Real. Spanish in Context 12(3).
Kapovi, Mate (2008) Uvod u indoeuropsku lingvistiku. Zagreb: Matica hrvatska.
Labov, W. (1966) The social stratication of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.:
Center for Applied Linguistics.

418

SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Labov, W. (1973) The social setting of linguistic change. In T. A. Sebeok (ed.) Current
trends in linguistics II: Diachronic, areal, and typological linguistics 195253. The
Hague: Mouton.
Labov, W. (1980) The social origins of sound change. In W. Labov (ed.) Locating language
in time and space 251266. New York: Academic Press.
Labov, W. (1990) The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change.
Language Variation and Change 2: 205254. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/
S0954394500000338.
Labov, W. (1994) Principles of linguistic change, volume 1: Internal factors. Cambridge, MA
and Oxford: Blackwell.
Labov, W. (2001) Principles of linguistic change, volume 2: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.
Labov, W. (2006) [1966] The social stratication of English in New York City. New York:
Cambridge University Press. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511618208.
Lorenzo Vsquez, R. (1975) El rotacismo en las lenguas romnicas. Verba 2: 119136.
Martn Butragueo, P. (1995) La variable (s) en el sur de Madrid. Contribucin al estudio
de la frontera de las hablas meridionales del espaol. Anuario de Letras 33: 557.
Milroy, L and Gordon, M. (2003) Sociolinguistics: Method and interpretation. Oxford:
Blackwell. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470758359.
Molina Martos, I. (1991) Estudio sociolingstico de la ciudad de Toledo. Doctoral
dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Momcilovic, N. (2009) A sociolinguistic analysis of /s/-aspiration in Madrid Spanish.
Munich: Lincom Europa.
Painter, R. K. (2011) Acoustic and perceptual explanations for rhotacism in Latin and
Germanic. Doctoral dissertation, University of Buffalo.
Paredes Garca, F. (2001) El habla de la Jara. Los sonidos. Alcal de Henares: Universidad
de Alcal.
Penny, R. (2002) [1991] A history of the Spanish language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Recasens, D. (2002) Weakening and strengthening in Romance revisited. Italian Journal
of Linguistics 14: 327373.
Rodrguez-Castellano, L. (1952) La variedad dialectal del Alto Aller. Oviedo: Instituto de
Estudios Asturianos.
Romero, J. (2001) Temporal reduction effects in diachronic change: Rhotacism. Paper
presented at the Conference on the Phonetics-Phonology Interface, ZAS, Berlin, 1113
October.
Romero, J. (2008) Gestural timing in the perception of Spanish r+C clusters. In
L. Colantoni and J. Steele (eds) Selected proceedings of the 3rd Conference on
Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology 5971. Barcelona: IAP.
Samper Padilla, J. A. (1990) Estudio sociolingstico del espaol de Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: La Caja de Canarias.

RHOTACISM IN SPANISH AND ITS DECLINE

419

Sol, M. J. (1992) Experimental phonology: The case of rhotacism. In W. U. Dressler, H. C.

Luschtzky, O. E. Pfeiffer and J. R. Rennison (eds) Phonologica 1988 259271.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sol, M. J. (2010) Effects of syllable position on sound change: An aerodynamic study of
nal fricative weakening. Journal of Phonetics 38: 289305. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.wocn.2010.02.001.
Tagliamonte, S. (2006) Analysing sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511801624.
Trask, R. L. (1996) Dictionary of phonetics and phonology. London and New York:
Routledge.
Widdison, K. A.(1993) Hacia los orgenes de la s aspirada en espaol. Estudios de Fontica
Experimental 5: 3460.

(Received 18th August 2014; revision received 23th October 2014; accepted 22th January
2015; nal revision received 6th May 2015)