The interaction of social factors in the acoustically gradient realization of intervocalic /d/ in Border Uruguayan Spanish

Along the Uruguayan-Brazilian border, Spanish exhibits phonological influence from Portuguese, including the realization of intervocalic /d/ as a stop. Using conversational data from 40 bilinguals, we analyze tokens of intervocalic /d/ acoustically using a consonant-vowel intensity ratio according to multiple social factors and their interactions. The results suggest that, while interactions are present (with stops being favored by Portuguese-preferring professional females), the main effects of social factors predominate. Younger speakers are moving away from the use of stop-like productions and toward the pan-Hispanic norm of variation between approximants and deletion. Portuguese-preferring speakers make greater use of stop-like variants, as do females, which is explained by the linguistic behaviors of the four women who produced /d/ with the highest intensity ratios.