Variable final back vowels in urban Asturian Spanish

Abstract

The contact between Asturian and Spanish in the region of Asturias (Spain) has led to the variable incorporation of linguistic features of Asturian into the Spanish of Asturian speakers. Among these features is the use of the masculine singular morpheme /-u/, as opposed to Spanish /-o/. In this study I provide a quantitative analysis of the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that govern the alternation between the Spanish and the Asturian morphemes, analyzing production data from 24 speakers from Gijón. The results of the mixed logistic regression analysis show that the selection of one vowel over the other is constrained by the adjacent phonological context and the variant used in the previous form. The use of /-u/ is also correlated with certain socio-demographic groups, such as male speakers, speakers whose occupations have low prestige and those who have a first order social tie with their interlocutor.