Speech rhythm and sentence type: Analyzing the durational properties of Olivenza Portuguese, Olivenza Spanish, and Castilian Spanish

The present paper compares the rhythmic properties of two contact varieties, Olivenza Portuguese (OP) and Olivenza Spanish (OS), with those of Castilian Spanish (CS). Based on the analysis of a corpus comprising recordings of declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences, we show that OS generally displays intermediate %V, VarcoV, and VnPVI scores between the ones for CS and OP. The greater or lesser differences between the three varieties are explained by referring to phonological properties such as (presence or absence of) vowel reduction, vowel and consonant elision, and specific lengthening effects. Our results suggest that sentence modality contrasts seem to be conveyed by rhythmic differences in the varieties under investigation: While durational differences between declaratives and imperatives were found in all of the three varieties (the differences being greater in OP and OS than in CS), declaratives and interrogatives only differ from one another in OP and OS.