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

Mitko Sabev^a, Bistra Andreeva^a, Christoph Gabriel^b, Jonas Grünke^c
Saarland University^a, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz^b, University of Regensburg^c, Germany

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.

Keywords: Judeo-Spanish; Bulgarian; vowel acoustics; speaking styles; word stress; contrast neutralisation