This book is intended to be an introduction to the sound system of the Spanish language. The book is descriptive in nature and presents a true picture of the language as it is spoken by native speakers from a wide variety of dialect zones. The book is divided into five parts and 25 chapters. Part one, Phonetics and Phonology," includes the following seven chapters: "The Study of Sounds and Systems"; "Phonetic Transcription"; "Speech Pronunciation and Acoustic Phonetics"; "Articulatory Phonetics: Vowels"; "Articulatory Phonetics: Consonants"; "The Five Families of Sounds"; and "The Phoneme." Part two, "Spanish Vocoids and Syllables," includes the following four chapters: "The Spanish Vowels"; The Spanish Glides /y/ and /w/"; "The Spanish Syllable"; and "Diphthongs, Syllabification, and Resyllabification." Part three, "Spanish Obstruents," includes the following five chapters: "The Voiceless Stops /p, t, k/ and the Affricate /c/"; "The Voiced Stops /b, d, g/"; "The Voiceless Fricative Phonemes /f/ and /s/"; "The Voiceless Fricatives /h/, /x/,/X/ and /theta/"; and "The Voiced Fricatives /y/ and /w/." Part four, "Spanish Sonorant Consonants," includes three chapters: "The Nasals /m/, /n/, and..."; "The Non-Lateral Liquids /r/ and /r/"; and "The Lateral Liquids...and (/". Part five, "Other Topics in Spanish Pronunciation", includes: "Spanish Word Stress"; "Spanish Intonation"; "Spanish Vowel Combinations"; "Spanish Language and History and Emerging Dialects"; "The Spanish of the Iberian Peninsula and the Canary Islands"; and "The Spanish Language in the New World." Four appendices and a glossary are appended. (Contains 473 references.) (KFT)