The allophones of the /tr/ consonant cluster in Chilean Spanish

Abstract

This article presents a proposal for defining the allophones of the /tޞ/ con-sonant cluster in Chilean Spanish. Four allophones were defined through auditory  and  spectrographic  analyses:  a  stop  followed  by  a  tap  [t૧ޞ],  an affricate with brief frication [tળૌޗ], an affricate with long frication [tળૌޗ], and a fricative [ળૌޗ] (the latter has not been previously reported in the literature). In addition, information is provided on idiolectal variation in the employment of these allophones and on the correlations between the phonetic variables and  context,  lexical  stress  and  frequency.  The  statistical  analysis  of  the results  of  two  pilot  perception  experiments  confirmed  that  speakers  can distinguish the various members of the proposed inventory, although not categorically in the case of the [tળૌޗ] versus [tળૌޗ] distinction. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the variants receive different subjective assessments according to their acoustic nature: the greater the occlusive prominence of a variant, the higher the level of prestige assigned to it (the opposite occurs with fricative prominence).