On the simplification of a prosodic inventory

This paper analyzes the declarative intonation of Afro-Bolivian Spanish (ABS) in terms of the realization of pitch accents and phrase boundary tones. We observe that the inventory of these phonological targets in ABS is much more reduced than what has been encountered in other native varieties of Spanish. Our ABS speakers show evidence of duplicating nuclear and prenuclear pitch accents, as well as boundary configurations, at both levels of phrasing. The results suggest that certain aspects of ABS intonation may be considered the result of conventionalized advanced second language acquisition processes (Sessarego, 2013a) stemming from an incomplete mastery of the phonology/pragmatics interface.

• Affiliations: 1: University of Texas at Austin; 2: University of Wisconsin-Madison