An electropalatography (EPG) study of nasal-trill/lateral sequences in Spanish Free

Trills and laterals require relatively precise articulatory and aerodynamic settings that are at least partly incompatible with setting necessary to produce nasal stops. Historically, this incompatibility has often been resolved through assimilation, deletion, or epenthesis in within-word [n+r] and [n+l] clusters (e.g. in Romance). It is expected that similar, yet gradient effects will be observed in across-word or hetero-morphemic sequences of nasals and liquids. This study examines the production of Spanish nasal-liquid sequences using electropalatography (EPG). Linguopalatal contact data were collected from 9 native speakers of Spanish (representing 3 dialects) producing various utterances with nasals before /r/ and /l/ (as well as before /t/). The analysis of C1 and C2 using standard indices of constriction location and degree showed that nasals had a more retracted and partly deocclusivized constriction before /r/, and a lowered tongue dorsum before both /r/ and /l/. These differences, indicative of substantial anticipatory coarticulatory effects in constriction location and degree, were similar across speakers, regardless of their dialect background and the default realization of final nasal (alveolar or velar). The results thus confirm the articulatory source of historical developments of combinations of nasals and liquids.