Acoustic variation in Buenos Aires /sC/ production: linguistic and social factors

/s/ debuccalization, or “pre-aspiration,” is well-known in Buenos Aires (Porteño) Spanish. Recent research on Porteño /st/ suggests its most common variant for some young speakers contains both pre- and post-aspiration. Using sociolinguistic interview data from 20 speakers, I explore (i) the prevalence of lengthy VOT in /sC/; (ii) whether variants differ in HNR, intensity, or spectral moments; (iii) whether, accounting for coarticulation, frication in /st/ is different from /sp sk/; and (iv) the role of social factors. A clearer picture of Porteño /sC/ will inform our understanding of why developments in one variety (i.e., Andalusian) may or may not follow suit in another (i.e., Porteño). Intervocalic /sC/, either word-medial or cross-word, were analyzed (n = 4084). With 29ms as lengthy VOT, tokens were codedas: /s/-retention (n = 355); retention with lengthy VOT (n = 59); pre-aspiration (n = 2941); pre-aspiration with lengthy VOT (n = 672); or post-aspiration (n = 33). Note that pre-aspiration is dominant. Preliminary LMER modeling suggests fricative duration plus the interaction of fricative location (pre- versus post-closure) and place of articulation, as linguistic factors, and age, gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, place of origin, and socioeconomic background, as social factors, are significant predictors of the acoustic variation.