Vowel reduction patterns of early SpanishEnglish bilinguals receiving continuous L1 and L2 input

Abstract

This study investigates the production of three morphophonetic variations of schwa in American English: the plural allomorph {-s} as in watches, the possessive allomorph {-s} as in Sasha’s, and word-finally as in Russia. The production of these three allomorphs were examined in Miami’s English monolingual and early Spanish-English bilingual populations. Our purpose was to determine how native-like early Spanish-English bilinguals’ spectral qualities and reduced vowel durations were compared to Miami English monolinguals during a reading task. Results indicate that early bilinguals’ reduced vowels followed the same overall pattern as monolinguals, but had different acoustic properties.