Sound change in Western Andalusian Spanish: Investigation into the actuation and propagation of post-aspiration

This study investigates the actuation and propagation of sound change in Western Andalusian Spanish (WAS) by examining the change from pre- to post-aspiration in intervocalic /s/ + voiceless stop sequences (i.e., /sp st sk/). We collected read-speech data from 30 WAS speakers and 30 comparison speakers of North-Central Peninsular Spanish (NCPS). The results show that the shift toward post-aspiration is most advanced in /st/-words, as compared to /sp/- and /sk/-words, which we take as evidence that actuation likely occurred in the coronal context. We additionally demonstrate how post-aspiration is integrating into the wider WAS sound system: (i) post-aspirated stops undergo closure voicing in a fashion akin to plain stops; and (ii) the post-aspirated pattern is now emerging in phonological environments that historically lacked coda-/s/, namely in the stop + /t/ context. An important contribution of this study concerns the likely role played by the coronal context (i.e., /st/-words) during both the actuation and propagation stages of the sound change. We situate the findings within frameworks suggesting that actuation and propagation are systematically connected phases of sound change rather than wholly independent processes.