Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Linguistics. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-91).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-70).

Thesis. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 236-246).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Connecticut, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-49).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Tübingen, 1967. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-340).

No description available.

The problem which prompted this study was that of determining the causes for the drop-out of students in Spanish from first to second year at Thomas Carr Howe High School, Indianapolis, Indiana. For comparative purposes it seemed profitable to include also in the study those students who were continuing in order to ascertain any existing differences in composition.Behind this basic problem lay the fact, supported by figures compiled in the language department at Howe High School over a period of years, that approximately half the students which initiated foreign language study did not continue to a second year of that study. This evidently was not a local problem for in New England, where schools have long emphasized foreign language study, second-year enrollments have not far exceeded half the number of first-year enrollments. Although a consensus of opinion of teachers of modern foreign languages would reveal that real satisfaction of working with a language does not come to the student until the third and fourth years, and that the first two years are directed largely toward assimilating material which assists the student toward that goal, studies have shown that only about 12 per cent continue to their third year, and that approximately 60 per cent discontinue their study at the end of one year.1 Naturally these facts pose a problem for which many educators would like a solution.The information which results from this study should have value for all those who have contact with the teaching of languages at Howe High School but it is hoped that the information might also provide the impetus for studies of a similar nature at other schools and finally result in greater numbers of students continuing their modern language studies to the point that they might more completely enjoy the returns of their earlier labors.

In an attempt to find a satisfactory and comprehensive explanation for the history of the sibilants in Peninsular Spanish, I explore the causal factors that were instrumental in motivating, promoting and diffusing the merger of voiced and voiceless sibilants. An investigation of these factors includes a discussion of language typology and universals, the acoustic qualities of the sibilant fricatives, issues surrounding phonemic mergers and dialect contact and mixing. In addition, I investigate the history of the sibilants, compare and contrast opposing views regarding that history and set forth those issues that have yet to receive a satisfactory explanation. Furthermore, I attempt to determine the geographical and chronological origins and the diffusion of this sound change by an orthographical investigation of several medieval documents and texts. In the final chapter, I tie together theory and data with the aim of giving a satisfactory and comprehensive exposition of the history of the sibilants in Peninsular Spanish. I conclude that the Spanish sibilants behave in keeping with the ideal observations set forth by the language universals examined in this thesis. The language-internal motivations include the ease in the articulation of voiceless sibilants in comparison to the voiced sibilants and the conditions that made the Old Spanish sibilants ripe for merger. Dialect mixing and contact and the weak ties within the social structure of medieval Spain are the language-external motivations that encouraged and promoted the sound merger and diffusion. With regard to the geographical and chronological history of the Spanish sibilants, I conclude that by the mid-thirteenth century, there is evidence of confusion of the /z/ and /s/ and by the end of the thirteenth century, neutralization of voice in the sibilants is widespread in all parts of Iberian Peninsula. There is possible evidence of seseo in Toledo as early as 1330 and in Soria in 1355. Evidence of the merger of [+voice] sibilants and [-voice] sibilants continues to mount throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In Central Spain, there is strong evidence of seseo in Madrid (1403-06), Peñafiel (1465) and Toledo (1438). and I, therefore, contend that early seseo is not exclusively Andalusian. By the mid-fifteenth century, there is possible evidence of merger of /z/ and /s/ in Southern Spain and by the sixteenth century, there is possible evidence of the merger Of /z/ and /s/ in Northern and Central Spain and possible evidence of zezeo and çeçeo in Southern Spain.