Judeo-Spanish and Bulgarian vowels in contact : the effect of word stress across speaking styles

Abstract

We present an acoustic analysis of Bulgarian Judeo-Spanish vowels, comparing them to the bilingual speakers’ Bulgarian vowels and those of monolingual Bulgarians. Careful and spontaneous speaking styles were examined, focusing on stress-induced variation, given Bulgarian’s height-neutralising vowel reduction. Analysis of 7058 tokens showed minor spectral differences in stressed vowels, indicating shared targets among bilinguals. Reduction was stronger in spontaneous speech, neutralising contrasts in Bulgarian /a–ɤ/ and /ɔ–u/ but not in Judeo-Spanish. Bulgarian /ɤ/ lowering in careful speech suggests age-graded variation.