Hacia la desfonologización: cambio lingüístico en el español de Gran Canaria
Towards Dephonologisation: Language Change in the Spanish of Gran Canaria

Summary/Abstract: This paper presents two phonetic changes taking place in the Spanish of Gran Canaria and their consequences for the phonemic inventory of this variety. More specifically, alophones of non-continuant obstruents produced by aproximantisation and post-vocalic voicing are described. The two processes contribute to the debate on contrastive features to be used with respect to Spanish obstruents, especially on the role of the feature continuant and the use of the tense/lax contrast instead of voiced/voiceless. It is argued that the changes observed in the Canary Islands are instances of lenition parallel to the historical changes experienced by Romance languages and, if their trajectory is not altered, they may lead to phonemic recategorisation.

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