On the phonetic realization and distribution of Costa Rican rhotics

The analysis of the Spanish data produced by speakers from the Costa Rican Central Valley evidenced that the trill has been substituted by an assibilated rhotic, while the tap also undergoes assibilation in three contexts: 1) in complex /tr/ onset clusters, 2) word-medially in complex onsets that come after a voiced coronal /l/ or /n/, and 3) in /rC/ clusters where the rhotic is in coda position, always before one or more bound clitic morphemes. Additionally, the tap assibilates phrase-finally. The proposal is that the assibilation of the trill results from the cross-linguistic tendency to reduce the articulation process: instead of producing the trill which requires controlled, precise, and sustained movement of the tongue tip, the magnitude of the movement of the tongue tip is reduced, resulting in assibilation of the trill in all contexts. Assibilation of the tap is explained in terms of coarticulation.