Spanish has five vowel phonemes. The lowest vowel is the low central unrounded vowel. However, in Eastern Andalusian Spanish, the mid central unrounded vowel becomes front before an underlying /s/.
In Eastern Andalusian Spanish, the low front unrounded vowel is realized in the following phrases:
el castor (the beaver)
el sastre (the tailor)
la cascada (the cascade)
las madres (the mothers)
las plantas (the plants)
The low vowel occurs when the underlying /s/ is glottalized or deleted. This also applies across word boundaries. The low front vowel is an allophone of the low central vowel because it occurs before an underlying /s/. Its occurrence can be predicted.
The low front unrounded vowel does not occur in standard Spanish. However, in the Eastern Andalusian dialect, it occurs before an underlying /s/. This is a feature which serves to distinguish Eastern Andalusian Spanish from other varieties of Spanish.
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