Buenos Aires Spanish (BAS) is well known for the sound change that led the palatal obstruent to become a post-alveolar fricative. However, that obstruent is not the only palatal phoneme undergoing sound change in BAS. The present study investigates the production of /ɲ/ and /nj/ in BAS, which have been reported as merging (Malmberg 1950). Previous research suggests that some speakers produce a ‘traditional’ (alveolo)palatal nasal, while other speakers realize /ɲ/ with two distinct non-simultaneous constrictions: alveolar/postalveolar and palatal (Kochetov & Colantoni 2011). An acoustic analysis is based on the speech of 33 speakers (15 males, 17 females; from four age groups: 15–19 years old, 20–29 years, 30–45 years and 45+ years) and was obtained by measuring duration and formant contours in the tautosyllabic vocalic portion. Results reveal that /ɲ/ and /nj/ are not fully merged, as some speakers produce differences. Specifically, the results indicate that production differences between men and women disappear as age decreases, with female speakers being more innovative. Findings provide evidence that the sound change is still progressing and probably nearing completion, and show that the palatal system in BAS is losing the (alveolo)palatal nasal.

中文翻译：

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布宜诺斯艾利斯西班牙语 /ɲ/ 和 /nj/ 合并的声学分析

布宜诺斯艾利斯西班牙语 (BAS) 以声音变化而闻名，该变化导致腭阻塞成为后齿龈擦音。然而，在 BAS 中，这个阻塞音并不​​是唯一发生声音变化的腭音位。本研究调查了 BAS 中 /ɲ/ 和 /nj/ 的产生，这已被报道为合并（Malmberg 1950）。先前的研究表明，一些说话者会产生“传统的”（alveolo）腭鼻音，而其他说话者会意识到 /ɲ/ 具有两个不同的非同时收缩：肺泡/后齿龈和腭（Kochetov & Colantoni 2011）。声学分析基于 33 名说话者（15 名男性，17 名女性；来自四个年龄组：15-19 岁、20-29 岁、30-45 岁和 45 岁以上）的语音，并通过测量持续时间和重音节发声部分的共振峰轮廓。结果显示 /ɲ/ 和 /nj/ 没有完全合并，因为一些说话者会产生差异。具体来说，结果表明，随着年龄的下降，男性和女性之间的生产差异消失了，女性演讲者更具创新性。研究结果提供了证据表明声音变化仍在进行中并且可能接近完成，并表明 BAS 中的腭系统正在失去（肺泡）腭鼻。