Metathesis, syllable weight and stress in Sevillian Spanish

Abstract This study investigates how stress and metathesis interact in Sevillian Spanish, focusing on how their interaction sheds light on representation. Metathesis affects /s/–voiceless stop sequences, moving a debuccalised coda /s/ to the release of the following stop ( → patha). This process plausibly changes syllable structure: the syllable where /s/ originated is closed at one representational level, but open on the surface ( pah .ta → pa .tha). The change in syllable structure could affect weight-sensitive stress, depending on the level speakers refer to in assigning stress. In a stress judgement task, Sevillian listeners treated syllables from which an /s/ had metathesised out similarly to heavy penults and differently from light penults. I outline a range of analyses to account for their behaviour, and suggest that a comprehensive analysis could include gestural representations and separate stress from metathesis, so that phonetic variability in the realisation of metathesis is permitted but does not affect stress.