The vowel /u/ before deleted word-final /s/, /r/, and /θ/ in Eastern Andalusian Spanish

Resumen

Eastern Andalusian Spanish deletes all coda consonants; yet, coda deletion analyses have focused on /-s/. The acoustic and statistical analyses of 317 tokens of /u/ in 24 Eastern Andalusian speakers confirm that the differences in quality between word-final /u/ and /u/ preceding deleted /-s/, /-r/, and /-θ/ are statistically significant. Furthermore, /-s/, /-r/, and /-θ/ deletion changes the quality of a preceding /u/ in different degrees but the difference of quality between these three realisations of /u/ is not statistically significant. Likewise, a perception experiment confirms that Eastern Andalusian speakers can identify whether or not /u/ is followed by an underlying /-s/, /-r/, or /-θ/; however, they cannot identify the deleted consonant.