On the intonation of Afro-Bolivian Spanish declaratives: Implications for a theory of Afro-Hispanic creole genesis

• Earlier prenuclear peaks, related to higher frequencies of L + H* pitch accents.
• L tones commonly appearing at both ip and IP boundaries.
• Evidence of frequently occurring circumflex movement at the ip and IP levels.
• Lack of downstepping.
• Narrow focus intonational tendencies across the data.

This paper analyzes the spontaneously produced intonation of Afro-Bolivian Spanish (ABS) declaratives. ABS is an Afro-Hispanic language of the Americas (AHLAs) spoken in the region of Los Yungas, Department of La Paz, Bolivia. The main findings indicate the presence in ABS of certain intonational features that diverge from those of other native varieties of Spanish. In line with recent hypotheses on the genesis and evolution of ABS and other AHLAs (Sessarego, 2013a and Sessarego, 2013b), we propose that our results reflect advanced second language acquisition processes, which do not imply any previous (de)creolization phase for these Afro-Hispanic varieties.