[PLUG-TALK] Spanish b

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sat, 28 Nov 2020 18:56:44 -0800
Denis Heidtmann <denis.heidtmann at gmail.com> dijo:

>For John,
>I sent your essay to an east coast friend.  She responded:
>'Bill, who taught Spanish phonetics, disagrees with the idea that the
>Spanish don't notice the difference in the "b" sounds, because they
>observe the rules very well.  It's a hard "b" at the beginning of an
>utterance after the period, but intervocalically it's the fricativa.
>Consonants are difficult for some learners, esp. the "d" and the "t,"
>because intervocalic "d" is pronounced softly like the "th" in "they."'
>
>I would have to reread your essay, but I did not think you said they
>do not notice the difference.  If you would like to whip the horse
>some more, feel free.

OK, here's the deal between 'phoneme' and 'allophone.' We refer to the
phoneme with (usually) the most common occurrence of the sound, and
'allophones' refers to the main sound and all of its variations. So,
for example, English has both [t] and [tʰ], where [tʰ] is one of the
allophones of [t]. The [tʰ] occurs only when /t/ occurs alone at the
start of a syllable that has primary stress:

	table	[tʰeɪbl̩]
	stable	[steɪbl̩]

We tend to use / / to mark phonemes, and [ ] (in IPA) to denote an
allophone. In the above example, /t/ is the English phoneme, and its
allophones are [t] and [tʰ]. And more to the point, I doubt you will
find any native English speakers, save those with education in English
phonetics, who are aware that they aspirate [p, t, and k] when they
occur alone at the start of a stressed syllable. That's the deal with
phonemes and allophones - native speakers are generally unaware of the
difference.

Now as to the Spanish /b/ and its allophones [b] and [β], many native
speakers have become aware of the difference because schools sometimes
teach the difference as they attempt to explain how to spell the
language. Your east coast friend points out something that I did not
explain thoroughly: The fricated [b, d, and ɡ] are very frequently
lenited to the point where they disappear, e.g., the phrase 'todo el
mundo' (everybody) comes out in ordinary speech as [toːl mundo] - the
[ð] allophone of /d/ disappeared. This happens so often that many
linguists  refer to the fricated stops as approximants (semivowels). As
a result it is not uncommon to encounter non-linguist native Spanish
speakers who are aware that their voiced plosives fricate between
vowels. 

I have also encountered native speakers who claim that they can hear
the difference between [b] and [v]. If you say a words containing [b]
and [v] to these people, invariably they give you the correct letter.
But they do so because they have been taught the spelling - they
couldn't possibly be getting it from the pronunciation because there is
normally no difference.

And having said that, there exist a few native speakers who actually
pronounce the /b/ and /v/ differently. Such pronunciation is an
affectation, even though they have probably forgotten when and how they
acquired it. Similarly, there are English speakers who pronounce the
't' in 'often' and even 'listen,' even though it never existed even in
the early days of Anglo Saxon. People strive to be 'correct,' even when
doing so makes them look foolish to a linguist.

You can find proof of my argument by going to Mexico and taking note of
hand made signs created by people who barely know how to read. You will
find frequent use of 'b' for 'v' and vice-versa.