ABSTRACT
In the linguistic literature, reports indicate that the Spanish of Puerto Rico, like the Caribbean Spanish dialects of Dominican Republic and Cuba, has [l] and deletion as /ɾ/ variants. The frequency patterns of use of variants for the phonemes /ɾ/ and /l/ among three generations of speakers in two Puerto Rican communities in the United States are compared. This work also explores whether the third generation’s variety displays phonological patterns comparable in frequency and environment to those found in the first and second generations in both communities. Data collected from recordings of 63 speakers reading word lists and paragraphs and answering a variety of questions aimed to encourage natural conversation. GOLDVARB X for Windows (Sankoff & Rand, 1999) was used to calculate the probabilistic effect of linguistic and extralinguistic factors and the application of the variable. The Puerto Ricans on the US East Coast demonstrated a preference for lateralization in word-final position (0.785), no cases of retroflex /ɾ/ were found. Among the US Midwest Puerto Ricans, the preference to use [ɾ] declines across the three different generations: first generation (0.590) and third generation (0.3510). The combination and interaction of linguistic factors (e.g., phonological environment, lexical context) and extralinguistic factors (e.g., level of education, exposure to and use of Spanish within the community, linguistic isolation, and negative prestige) result in the patterned use of the variables for /ɾ/ and /l/ in both communities of Puerto Rican speakers.
