Angela Castro Garces

Lexical and Phonological Description of a Spanish Dialect: Studying Dialects in Colombia Angela Castro Garces

This book presents a lexical and phonological description of the Spanish dialect spoken in the town of Noanamito, Lopez de Micay, Colombia. The people who live in this community are mostly of African descent and their speech is characterized by lexical and phonological patterns that differ from the rest of the country. The following phonological features are illustrated: a) /s/ deletion and aspiration; b) the cluster /ao/ (pronunciation variant that occurs at the end of words ending in /ado/); c) final /d/ deletion; d) phonological reduction of inflected estar ?be'; and e) fricatives /s/ & /f/ shifted to [h] word initially. Some lexical features that are characteristic of this town are also described, such as: the use of the word potrillo (to refer to a canoe) or the word papiao (to refer to someone who has just eaten).