An Analysis of Frequency as a Factor Contributing to the Diffusion of Variable Phenomena

Abstract

This investigation examines the behavior of intervocalic dental fricative deletion in past-participle contexts versus all other instances, as well as palato-alveolar fricative devoicing to determine the effect of frequency. The evidence found reveals that lexical frequency and type frequency are relevant to explain rates of deletion in the case of intervocalic dental fricative. High frequency tokens show more deletion than less frequent ones. Past participles ending in -ado reflect the influence of high type frequency. Regarding devoicing of the palato-alveolar fricative, words that occur more frequently in contexts favoring the devoicing also devoice at a higher rate in disfavoring contexts as the phenomenon is spreading from favoring contexts to disfavoring ones. Furthermore, in the disfavoring context, low frequency words devoice at a higher rate than high frequency words. The evidence presented contributes to the growing body of studies regarding frequency effects on Spanish phonological processes.