The last stronghold of word-final /s/ in Barranquillero Spanish: Prevocalic word-final /s/ in cohesive bigrams

The variable articulation of word-final /s/ in Spanish is conditioned by social (e.g., age, gender, socioeconomic status), linguistic (e.g., surrounding phonological context, prosodic stress), and usage-based factors (e.g., frequency, cohesion between words). In an effort to elucidate the influence of these factors, 727 tokens of prevocalic word-final /s/ spoken by 15 speakers in Barranquilla, Colombia, are analyzed. The results reveal significant conditioning effects from age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, it is found that prevocalic word-final /s/ in higher-frequency and more cohesive bigrams is more prone to articulation as a sibilant or aspiration, instead of a null realization. This chapter lends empirical support to the idea that the contexts in which words are used affect their mental representation, and thus future production. In summary, it is proposed that the last stronghold for word-final /s/ in Barranquillero Spanish is in highly cohesive bigrams where /s/ is in prevocalic position.