Spanish phonology

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Pronunciation · History · Orthography
Varieties · Names for the language
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Determiners · Nouns · Pronouns
Adjectives · Prepositions · Adverbs
Verbs (conjugation · irregular verbs)

This article is about the phonology of the Spanish language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used on radio and television,[1][2][3][4] in Spain (for details, see the articles on History of the Spanish language and Spanish dialects and varieties).

Spanish has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish phonemes (written in slashes / /) and corresponding allophones (written in brackets [ ]).

Consonants

Table of consonant phonemes of Spanish[5] Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n ɲ
Stop p b t d tʃ ʝ k g
Fricative f (θ)  s  x
Trill r
Tap ɾ
Lateral l (ʎ)

Consonants in parentheses are phonemes of Standard Spanish from Spain but absent in many dialects, especially those in Latin America.

Phonetic notes

/t/ and /d/ are laminal denti-alveolar.[6]

/b/, /d/, and /ɡ/ are approximants ([β̞], [ð̞], [ɣ˕]; hereafter represented without the undertack) in all places except after a pause, a nasal consonant or, in the case of /d/, after a lateral consonant; in such contexts they are voiced plosives.[7]

/ʝ/ is an approximant in all contexts except after a nasal, /l/, or a pause where it may be an affricate ([ɟʝ]).[8][9] The approximant allophone differs from non-syllabic /i/ in a number of ways; it has a lower F2 amplitude, is longer, can only appear in the syllable onset (including word-initially, where non-syllabic /i/ never appears), is a palatal fricative in emphatic pronunciations, and is unspecified for rounding (e.g. viuda [ˈbjuða] 'widow' vs ayuda [aˈʝʷuða] 'help').[10] The two also overlap in distribution after /l/ and /n/: enyesar [ẽ̞ɲɟʝe̞ˈsar] ('to plaster') aniego [ãnje̞ɣo̞] ('flood').[11] Although there is dialectal and ideolectal variation, speakers may also exhibit other near-minimal pairs like abyecto ('abject') vs abierto ('opened').[12] [13] There are some alternations between the two, prompting Alarcos Llorach (1950)[14] to postulate an archiphoneme /I/[15] so that ley would be transcribed /ˈleI/ and leyes /ˈleIes/.

In a number of varieties, including some American ones, a process parallel to the one distinguishing non-syllabic /i/ from consonantal /ʝ/ occurs for non-syllabic /u/ and a rare consonantal /w̝/.[16][17] Near minimal pairs include deshuesar [de̞zw̝e̞ˈsar] ('to bone') vs. desuello [de̞ˈswe̞ʝo̞] ('skinning'), son huevos [ˈsõ̞ŋ ˈw̝e̞βo̞s] ('they are eggs') vs son nuevos [ˈsõ̞ ˈnwe̞βo̞s] ('they are new'),[18] and huaca [ˈ(ɡ)w̝aka] ('Indian grave') vs u oca [ˈwo̞ka] ('or goose').[19]

/θ/, /s/,[20] and /f/[21] become voiced before voiced consonants as in jazmín ('Jasmine') [xaðˈmĩn], rasgo ('feature') [ˈrazɣo̞], and Afganistán [avɣãnisˈtãn]. There is a certain amount of free variation in this so that jazmín can be pronounced [xaθˈmĩn] or [xaðˈmĩn].[22] While /s/ becomes dental before denti-alveolar consonants, /θ/ remains interdental in all contexts.[23] /x/ may be pronounced uvular before /u/ (including when /u/ is in the syllable onset as [w]).[24]

The voiceless bilabial fricative, is a common pronunciation of /f/ in nonstandard speech so that fuera is pronounced [ˈɸweɾa] rather than [ˈfweɾa].[25]

Although there are only three nasal phonemes and two lateral ones, /l/ and the nasal consonants assimilate to the place of articulation of following consonants[26] even across word boundaries.[27] Nasals are only contrastive before vowels; for most speakers, only [n] appears before a pause, though in Caribbean varieties this may instead be [ŋ] or an omitted nasal with nasalization of the preceding vowel.[28][29] Assimilatory allophones are shown in the following table:

nasal lateral
word IPA gloss word IPA gloss
ánfora [ˈãɱfo̞ɾa] 'amphora'
encía [ẽ̞n̟ˈθia] 'gum' alzar [al̟ˈθar] 'to raise'
antes [ˈãn̪t̪e̞s] 'before' alto [ˈal̪t̪o̞] 'tall'
ancha [ˈãnʲtʃa] 'wide' colcha [ˈko̞lʲtʃa] 'quilt'
cónyuge [ˈkõ̞ɲɟʝuxe̞] 'spouse'
rincón [rĩŋˈkõ̞n] 'corner'
enjuto [ẽ̞ɴˈχut̪o̞] 'dry'

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e̞ o̞
Open ä

Spanish has five vowels /i/ /e/ /a/ /o/ /u/. Each occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables:[30]

stressed unstressed
piso 'I step' pisó 's/he stepped
peso 'I weigh' pesó 's/he weighed'
paso 'I pass' pasó 's/he passed'
poso 'I pose' posó 's/he posed'
pujo 'I bid' (present tense) pujó 's/he bid'
Spanish diphthongs[31] IPA Example Meaning
Falling
/ei/ rey king
/ai/ aire air
/oi/ hoy today
/eu/ neutro neutral
/au/ pausa pause
/ou/[32] bou Seine fishing
Rising
/je/ tierra earth
/ja/ hacia towards
/jo/ radio radio
/ju/ viuda widow
/wi/[33] fuimos we went
/we/ fuego fire
/wa/ cuadro picture
/wo/ cuota quota

Nevertheless, there are some distributional gaps or rarities. For instance, an unstressed high vowel in the final syllable of a word is rare.[34]

Spanish has six falling diphthongs and eight rising diphthongs. While many diphthongs are historically the result of a recategorization of vowel sequences (hiatus) as diphthongs, there is still lexical contrast between diphthongs and hiatus.[35] There are also some lexical items that vary amongst speakers and dialects between hiatus and diphthong: words like biólogo ('biologist') with a potential diphthong in the first syllable and words like diálogo with a stressed or pretonic sequence of /i/ and a vowel vary between a diphthong and hiatus.[36] Chițoran & Hualde (2007) hypothesize that this is because vocalic sequences are longer in these positions.

During fast speech, sequences of vowels in hiatus become diphthongs wherein one becomes non-syllabic (unless they are the same vowel, in which case they fuse together) as in poeta [ˈpo̯eta] ('poet') and maestro [ˈmae̯stɾo] ('teacher').[37] Similarly, the relatively rare diphthong /eu/ may be reduced to [u] in certain unstressed contexts, as in Euphemia, [uˈfemja].[38] In the case of verbs like aliviar ('relieve'), diphthongs result from the suffixation of normal verbal morphology onto a stem-final /j/ (that is, aliviar would be |alibj| + |ar|).[39] This contrasts with verbs like ampliar ('to extend') which, by their verbal morphology, seem to have stems ending in /i/.[40]

Spanish also possesses triphthongs like /wei/ and, in dialects that use a second person plural conjugation, /jai/, /jei/, and /wai/ (e.g. buey, 'ox'; cambiáis, 'you change'; cambiéis, '(that) you may change'; and averiguáis, 'you ascertain').[41] Non-syllabic /e/, /o/, and /a/ can be reduced to [ʝ], [w̝] and complete elision, respectively, as in beatitud [bʝatiˈtuð] ('beatitude'), poetisa [pw̝e̞ˈtisa] ('poetess'), and ahorita [o̞ˈɾita] ('right away'); the frequency (though not the presence) of this phenomenon differs amongst dialects, with a number having it occur rarely and others exhibiting it always.[42]