Traditional vs Castilian pattern in Cantabrian Spanish. Evidence of

Traditional vs Castilian pattern in Cantabrian Spanish. Evidence of the northern Spanish intonation continuum Miguel Cuevas-­‐Alonso Univ. Vigo M. Jesús López Bobo Univ. Oviedo Dialectologists agree on the recognition of Cantabrian Spanish as a romance dialect
evolved from Latin, with a historical development that demands for its inclusion into
the Asturleonés linguistic diasystem (Holmsquist, 1988; Penny, 1970; Ealo, 2007;
Fernández Juncal, 1998). Even though current dialectology considers this linguistic
variety as a Spanish dialect, it owns some features that the Spanish language never
inherited or they were removed very soon in its formation process. The old Leonés
intonation survives in zones of the Leonés kingdom, which were early hispanicized
(Meléndez Matías et al., 2006 y 2008; López Bobo y Cuevas Alonso, 2009 y 2010).
Taking up again the thesis by R. Penny (2000 and 2004), these authors favour the idea
that the Leonés intonation constitutes a prosodic continuum in the north-western zone
of the Peninsula, with vague interdialectal limits.
As we will show in this presentation, homogenous western prosodic base does not
exist. On the contrary, different processes of koineization have resulted in intonation
patterns in which elements of a Castilian base have mixed in a varied proportion with
others of a western origin –kept in the northwest of Zamora, north of León, Asturias,
Galicia and the whole Portuguese linguistic area–.
Our aim is to show this complexity. We will describe the prosodic models attested in
the annalysis of a corpus obtainend from 5 women (25 to 50 years old, without
University degree). The sentences present a structure SVO and show all the possible
accentual combinations in subject and object. We will compare our data with the ones
obtained for other northern linguistic varieties (Asturian and Galician) and with the
Basque Country and Castilian Spanish dialect.
The data show that the prosodic situation is very complex in Cantabria. It may be due
to the fact that it is a zone where a mixture of people of diverse origins took place;
this situation, together with the contact with other linguistic varieties (Asturian) and
with other dialects of Castilian (Spanish from the Basque Country and central
Spanish) resulted in an intonation that remarkably differs from the western to the
eastern area of the region.
In previous works, we have confirmed the coexistence of two different intonation
patterns: on the one hand, the northern pattern, regularly preserved within the rural
areas and, to a lesser extent, within the city area, which shows a number of
similarities with other northern subsystems, survives as a part of the north-western
continuum. On the other hand, the Castilian pattern, typical of city areas, with has
falling contour in assertive sentences and a rising one in interrogative ones, similar to
the one confirmed for standard Castilian; nonetheless, the former shows interferences
with intonation vernacular features.
Limits and Areas in Dialectology Lisboa • 2011 As we will show in this investigation none of these models is homogeneous and show
interferences with diverse degree; the dialect-language standard dimension gains
special relevance and the nivelation process: the Castilian pattern adds features of the
dialectal pattern and vice versa. Nonetheless, the orientation of this nivelation process
depends to a lesser extent on the rural or urban field. In the latter, we can observe a
greater degree of accommodation or convergence with the standard language, thus
producing in numerous cases interdialectal patterns. On the contrary, in the rural field,
sociocultural conditions and the rate of mobility of individuals determine the degree
of nivelation with the standard language. Large scale emigration (quoted by Aver and
Hiskins) and the processes of convergence between the traditional and the standard
dialect were of great importance in the case of Cantabria if we take into account the
internal migratory processes from the country to the city.
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