Hypersegmentation of written words: evidence of relation between spoken and written utterances

• Grant number: 13/14546-5
• Support type: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: January 01, 2014 - December 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal researcher: Luciani Ester Tenani
• Grantee: Luciani Ester Tenani
• Home Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to investigate the relation between spoken and written utterances based on a phonological analysis of hypersegmented written words. The main question to be answered here is: "to what extent are the hypersegmented words also results from features of spoken utterances, particularly of metrical foot prosodic constituents, prosodic word and clitic group?" The answer will be given from a corpus analysis of hypersegmented words to be identified in a longitudinal sample of texts written by students who attended the last four years of elementary school in a public school in São Paulo. It is assumed that the hypersegmentations done by those students are registers of (conflicting) hypothesis of what the conventional written word is, which can be anchored both in prosodic and literate information. This hypothesis attempts to show that the unconventional presence of the hyphen or the white space can be interpreted as a graphic register of prosodic boundaries which delimit prosodic constituents. Finally, this research aims to advance on the linguistic concept knowledge of word and the expected results may contribute to the Portuguese teaching. (AU)