It was mentioned in Week 3 that connected speech phenomena contribute to the perception that Spaniards speak very fast. Resyllabification and syllable contraction are the most important of these. 

Resyllabification 

Resyllabification is a phonological process in which consonants are attached to syllables other than those they originally come from. It involves adjustments of syllable structure across morpheme or word boundaries, and is common in Romance languages. So in Spanish, unlike in English, a word-final consonant is normally resyllabified together with the following word-initial vowel, so mis amigos (my friends) is syllabified as mi.sa.mi.gos. This makes it difficult for students to parse the individual words and gives the impression that Spaniards speak so fast that they merge words. Thus, the two phrases tienes alas (you have wings) and tiene salas (s/he has rooms) sound the same in connected speech. Although there are not many ambiguous phrases like these, when they encounter them, students might have the impression that spoken Spanish cannot be segmented into words. Being aware of resyllabication will improve students’ spoken language comprehension. To raise awareness, a parallel can be drawn between linking-r (or even intrusive-r) in British English. The word caris pronounced as [kaː] in isolation, but in a phrase where it is followed by a vowel-initial word like car is, an r is also pronounced and syllabified with the next word [kaː. ɹɪz]. The phenomenon is attested even in phrases where no orthographic r is present, so when a word ends in /ə/, /ɪə/, /ɑː/, or /ɔː/ and the next starts with a vowel, an r appears; India (r) and.  

Syllable contractions

In connected speech, it is very common that sequences of unstressed vowels (especially if one of them is an i or a u) are grouped into a single syllable across word boundaries (in Spanish, this is known as sinalefa) and a diphthong is formed; mi amigo [mi̯a.ˈmi.ɣo], tu abuelo (your grandfather) [tu̯a.ˈβu̯e.lo].

Frequently, sequences of identical vowels are reduced to a single vowel; de Elena (from Elena) [de.ˈle.na], estaba allí (I/he was there) [es.ta.βa.ˈʝi], and also within a word; alcohol [al.ˈkol]. These contractions can even affect three vowels va a ayudar (s/he will help) [ba.ʝu.ˈðar].

Ideas for exercises

1. Ask your students to listen to a recording (or a recording with text) appropriate for their level and find any resyllabifications or syllable contractions.

2. At higher levels: Find a poem that contains syllable contractions (sinalefa) and ask students to count the number of syllables, show where contraction occurs, and then read the poem aloud. For example: 

Activity

Listen to this recording and give the student feedback on the pronunciation of her vowels in Spanish. Disregard any other language errors. 

 Feedback: Student 2

You can check your answer in Section 6.