Towards an acoustical-phonetic description of diphthongs and hiatuses in Brazilian Portuguese

• Grant number: 18/25221-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2019
• End date: December 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Pablo Arantes
• Grantee: Raquel Casare Medeiros
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project's goal is to make a phonetic-acoutical description of vowel sequences in Brazilian Portuguese that can be classified either as diphthongs or hiatuses so that it is possible to know what makes the two kinds of sequence different from a production point of view. Duration and formant trajectories of both types of sequence are the two acoustic parameters that will be investigated. Duration analysis will allow us to test the hypothesis that hiatuses are longer than diphthongs, since the former are made up of two syllabic vowels and the latter of a vowel and a semivowel. Formant trajectories will be time-normalized to allow for the visual comparison of sequences of different lengths can be compared. Trajectories will then be quantitatively analyzed using the discrete cosine transform so that its movement can be reduced to a number of coefficients that can then be compared. The effect of stress of duration and formant trajectories will be tested by varying the stress status of vowels in target sequences. Sequences of both types comprising all the combinations allowed by BP's phonotactics will be embedded in words of short phrases and read by speakers.