Variation and change in stop consonants in the spanish spoken in Andalucía

This article investigates the phonetic cues which speakers of Andalusian Spanish use to distinguish words of the type pasta ~ pata, pisto ~ pito, casco ~ caco; words which contain the graphemes Vowel + Sibilante + voiceless Occlusive + Vowel (VSOV) from those in which the sibilant consonant is not present: the sequences Vowel + voiceless Occlusive + Vowel (VOV). The article also investigates the phonetic differences between these latter sequences and the sequences Vowel + spirant Aproximant + Vowel (VAV); minimal pairs such as pipa ~ piba, pito ~
pido, caco ~ cago. The results show that in the first set of sequences (VSOV vs VOV) the most reliable phonetic cue is not the presence of some type of aspiration of the /s/ before the occlusive, since this is not present in a third of the cases, rather the most reliable phonetic cue is to be found in the pronunciation of the occlusive consonants. In the VSOV sequences these are always voiceless and are also statistically more aspirated (and in the East of Andalucía longer) than those of the VOV sequences. Moreover, the occlusives of the VOV sequences are only
voiceless 13% of the time whilst they are voiced 69% and are pronounced as approximants 19%. This latter type of pronunciations could lead to a phonetic neutralisation between the sequences VOV and VAV on account of the fact that in the latter sequences the consonant is pronounced as an approximant 66% whilst no consonant is pronounced 34%. It must also be noted that men have more of a tendency to not pronounce the approximants in the sequences VAV and voice the supposedly voiceless occlusives in the VOV sequences.