Abstract The present study describes the results of two experiments that analyze the effects of language dominance on Catalan/Spanish bilingual speech production. We examined the acoustics of the Catalan [a]~[ə] alternation (a phonological process induced by lexical stress) and of the Catalan mid vowel contrasts /e/-/ɛ/ and /o/-/ɔ/ (two phonemic contrasts) in the speech of Catalan- vs. Spanish-dominant early Catalan/Spanish bilinguals from Majorca (Spain). The results indicate that, contrary to the analysis of the Catalan mid vowels, stressed and unstressed Spanish and Catalan /a/ yielded no significant difference as a function of language dominance. These findings suggest that unstressed vowel reduction, a phonological process, may be relatively easier to acquire than phonemic contrasts with a low functional load (/e/-/ɛ/, /o/-/ɔ/), perhaps because its predictability and high frequency may attract attention and/or relieve cognitive resources, which could be conducive to phonological learning. These findings demonstrate that language dominance effects in the production of phonemic contrasts, widely researched in the literature on early bilingualism, do not guarantee the same effects on the implementation of phonological processes.

中文翻译：

---

语言优势并不总是能预测双语语音生成中的跨语言交互

摘要 本研究描述了两个实验的结果，这些实验分析了语言优势对加泰罗尼亚语/西班牙语双语语音产生的影响。我们检查了加泰罗尼亚语 [a]~[ə] 交替（由词汇重音引起的语音过程）和加泰罗尼亚语中元音对比 /e/-/ɛ/ 和 /o/-/ɔ/（两个音位对比）在来自马略卡岛（西班牙）的加泰罗尼亚语与以西班牙语为主的早期加泰罗尼亚语/西班牙语双语者的演讲中。结果表明，与加泰罗尼亚语中元音的分析相反，重读和非重读西班牙语和加泰罗尼亚语 /a/ 在语言优势方面没有显着差异。这些发现表明，与低功能负荷（/e/-/ɛ/、/o/-/ɔ/）的音位对比相比，无重音元音减少是一种语音过程，可能相对更容易获得，也许是因为它的可预测性和高频率可以吸引注意力和/或缓解认知资源，这可能有利于语音学习。这些发现表明，在有关早期双语的文献中广泛研究的音素对比产生中的语言优势效应并不能保证对语音过程的实施产生相同的影响。