1. Punctuation
Punctuation marks (. / , / ; / : /…/ ¿? / ¡!) are used in accordance with the general rules of Spanish punctuation. Ellipses (…) are used above all when a sentence or syntagm remains unfinished or in cases of a short pause within a sentence, sometimes with repetition of the same word. If the word is repeated, a comma (,) is added after the ellipsis. For example:
I1: No, mujer
es que como tengo aquí el… Se hace una masa de, de, de todos
esos ingredientes y después se meten en las tripas del cerdo, y se
cuecen una hora o hora y media, y luego se fríen. Y nada más…
y luego, pues al otro día se estaca al marrano, pues despedazarle todo
y se aparta por un lado el…, el magro y por otro lado los jamones, el
lomo, con el magro se hacen los chorizos, y nada más.
E1: Y el magro, ¿se pica
o…?
I1: Se pica, claro, para hacer
el…
E1: ¿Cómo, cómo
es eso?
If there are noticeable pauses, these are usually indicated using the list of conversation tags (“Pauses and silence”).
All interventions begin with a capital letter. However, when there is an overlap at the end of a question, the informant's or interviewer's intervention should begin with a lower-case letter. For example:
E1: Y ¿usó algún
banco o una mesa [HS:I1 Bueno, sí,]?
I1: una mesa para echar el cerdo
y luego pues tres o cuatro hombres, pues se le tenía a fuerza, no había
que atarle ni nada, era solo pues la fuerza de los hombres.
Simultaneous Speech interventions have their own punctuation. For example:
I1: Pues la matanza llega el mes de… diciembre [HS:E1 Por diciembre.] y normalmente pues entonces…
Words that the informant leaves out are marked with a hyphen (-) at the cut-off point. If it is interpreted that there is a pause, ellipses may follow. When the informant tails off mid-sentence and changes the subject, a pipe symbol or vertical bar [ | ] is used. Most frequently, the informant rephrases or self-corrects within the same discourse. In these cases, the comma (,) is used. Examples:
Fui-, fuimos allí.
Fui-, marchamos allí.
y volver a echar agua con jabón otra vez, eh..., que esté fre-..., eh..., húmedo la ropa, y se le va la mancha, mejor que con lejía
y con todo.
Recogíamos pri-..., en los caseríos se recogían.
en la casa, la tienda había levadura.
The repetition of a word or sequence is always separated by a comma. If there is a short pause, an ellipsis followed by a comma is used. For example:
Estábamos en, en la casa.
Empecé con…, empecé con la tienda.
The transcription of direct speech quotations mentioned by the informant is transcribed in inverted commas. If the speech verb precedes the direct speech it is followed by a colon, inverted commas, and a capital letter. If the verb follows the direct speech, it is separated by commas. For example:
When direct speech reflects the interventions of different speakers, without using speech verbs, these interventions are separated by a full stop and begin with a capital letter. Example:
I1: "Aintzane". "¿Qué?". "Tú qué | cómo… Tú, ¿quién crees que eres?". Me dijo: "¿Pues?". "Ninguna pasea y tú pa pasear un domingo por la tarde con el novio, tú, ¿quién crees que eres?". "Pues yo, Aintzane". Le dije: "Porque por las noches nos tienes controlaos y de día no podemos, a ver qué coño vamos a hacer", le dije.
2. Transcription of phonetic, phonological and morphophonological variants
Conventional spelling is generally used, although certain concessions are made for dialectal phonetics, especially in reflecting the deletion, addition and metathesis of sounds. The substitution of sounds for other sounds is more problematic, since without a rigorous phonetic analysis it is not easy to determine which segment is used as a substitute, except in an impressionistic way. On the other hand, the graphic mimesis of seseo, ceceo, yeísmo or the glottalisation of consonants in syllabic coda would require an actual graphic metamorphosis of the transcribed texts, which is not the best option for the subsequent morphosyntactic annotation. For this reason, we have dispensed with transcribing those phonetic evolutions which imply a change of timbre in vowels or processes of assimilation or relaxation (such as fricatisation, rhotacism or glottalisation) in the consonants.
Deletion
If a vowel, consonant or syllable segment is deleted, either within a word or because of syntactic phonetics, it is not transcribed. If it is a vowel merger between words in the syntactic chain, it is marked with ('). For example:
comprao corresponds to “comprado”
comío corresponds to “comido”
comelo corresponds to “comerlo”
s’ha caído corresponds to “se ha caído”
tá corresponds to “está”
pa corresponds to “para”
to’l corresponds to “todo el”
to corresponds to “todo”
na corresponds to “nada”
sabís corresponds to “sabéis”
ventitrés corresponds to “veintitrés”
mu corresponds to “muy”
pa’l corresponds to “para el”
d’allí corresponds to “de allí”
onde corresponds to “donde”
ande corresponds to “adonde”
buenismo corresponds to “buenísimo”
ará corresponds to “arar” or “arada”
cazaó corresponds to “cazador”
Exceptionally, we will also transcribe pos ("pues") in this category.
When such a merger is of equal vowels and usually occurs in Spanish, the apostrophe is not used:
entre el
le echamos
de este
Segment replacement
In general, phonetic or phonological variations involving segment substitution will not be reflected. This means that phonetic variation in the habitual pronunciation of an unstressed vowel [e, i] [o, u] or a consonant are not reflected. The only exception is the hesitation between the unstressed [a, e, o]. A problematic point is the opening of vowels conditioned by the presence of a glottal consonant. According to the above criteria, this opening is not reflected, not even the possible consequent loss of the glottal, because without a rigorous phonetic analysis it is difficult to affirm its absence or presence in the sequence.
['ehta] is transcribed esta.
['deɾ̼de] is transcribed desde.
['tɾ̼aθtor] is transcribed tractor.
['bɾ̼anka] is transcribed blanca.
[kaθa'ol] is transcribed cazaor.
['ɣweno] is transcribed bueno.
[a'ßuxa] is transcribed aguja.
['bɛjle] is transcribed baile.
[ko'mel] is transcribed comer.
[ßu'sotros] is transcribed vosotros.
[sus] is transcribed sos.
[kan'sau] is transcribed cansao.
[pi'seβ̞ɾ̼re] is transcribed pesebre.
['parako] is transcribed párraco 'párroco'.
[alper'ɣata] is transcribed alpergata 'alpargata'.
['poʝo] is transcribed pollo.
['kasa] is transcribed caza.
[θo'koro] is transcribed socorro.
[mu'ʃaʃo] or [mu'ʝaʝo] is transcribed muchacho.
[ohpi'tɛ] is transcribed hospital.
[lah'kasɛ] is transcribed las casas.
Adding or changing the order of segments
In the case of addition or alteration of order of phonemes, this change shall be transcribed using conventional spelling:
toballa
probe
muncho
asín
arrecoger
When this addition involves a velar increment before the initial diphthong [we] or a palatal increment before the diphthong [je], conventional spelling is used:
['ɣwerto] is transcribed huerto.
['ʝelo] is transcribed hielo
Accent changes
A diacritic is used to indicate certain dialectal pronunciations. Tonic possessives, as well as words that require it, may be marked with an accent, contrary to conventional spelling rules, to make the change of accent explicit.
mí padre
['aj] áhi
['maiθ] máiz
[sa'ßana] sabána
[pa'xaros] pajáros
[sen'tajka] sentáica "sentadica"
Morphological variations
Dialectal morphology is always reflected as it appears:
dijon
tuviendo
sos
vos
juegaba
marcharsen
cafeses
traíba
un quesu vs. unos quesos
bemos (instead of habemos)
béis (instead of habéis)
3. Other graphic conventions
Numerals are transcribed in letters, except in the case of years. For example:
I1: Tuve doce hijos.
I1: Me casé en el 48.
Words from other languages (Basque, Latin, English, etc.) are transcribed in italics.
