The intervocalic /d/ rhotacism in Algherese Catalan. Interpretation and quantitative analysis of its variation

Abstract

This paper offers a quantitative analysis of the variability in the intervocalic /d/ rhotacism in Algherese Catalan, firstly as a means to identify with precision and statistic validity the social and linguistic factors that give rise to the allophonic variants [d] and [ɾ], and secondly in order to view the process itself within the framework of the variationist theory of linguistic change. With reference to the first objective, the social factors under consideration were rejected as causal sources of the rhotacism process, meaning that variation owes itself to linguistic factors, and primarily to those relating to the morphological area of the word and the type of word in which /d/ occurs. As to our second aim, the under-application of rhotacism in words introduced later is indicative of the fossilization of the dialect, which phonetically, phonologically and stylistically displays a reduction tendency.

Key words: Algherese Catalan, rhotacism, linguistic change, variationism, sociophonetics.