Analyzing Andalusian coronal fricative norms (ceceo, seseo, and distinción) using a sociophonetic Demerger Index

This chapter provides an overview of previous studies of Andalusian Spanish coronal fricatives, covering diachronic and synchronic variation, sociolinguistic findings, and methodological developments. Building on these studies, this chapter promotes a novel acoustic analysis of coronal fricatives of 80 speakers from Western Andalusia. Specifically, this study proposes a Demerger Index that compares inter-speaker variation only after calculating individual speakers’ relative distance between central tendencies per grapheme (<s>, <z, ci, ce>) for each acoustic measure per speech style. The results demonstrate that the Demerger Indices of center of gravity (Hz) and mean intensity (dB) are the best measures, and, supporting previous impressionistic studies, the split of ceceo into distinción is led by younger speakers, women, those of professional occupations, and in more formal styles. Thus, this gradient sociophonetic approach complements previous analyses by examining the degree of demerger. The chapter concludes with future directions for research on Andalusian coronal fricatives.