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| Author(s): |
Leonardo Couto Franco de Oliveira
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem |
| Defense date: | 2003-07-25 |
| Examining board members: |
Eleonora Cavalcante Albano;
Plinio Almeida Barbosa;
Hani Camille Yehia
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| Advisor: | Eleonora Cavalcante Albano |
| Abstract | |
The positional variant of a phoneme is known as allophony. It is usually considered a phonetic process of automatic and unconscious execution by speakers of a language. However, preliminary results indicate that allophonic variants can be perceived differently in words and non-words. Would it, then, be possible, that a phonetic phenomenon, such as allophony, could be influenced by lexical status? In order to test this hypothesis, two perceptual experiments with vowel /a/ allophony in stressed and post-stressed position in Brazilian Portuguese were performed. The collected data consisted of reaction time and correct response rate in an ABX discrimination paradigm. The stimuli consisted of naturally produced and modified vowels to match stress context. Lexical neighborhood, frequency of occurrence e phonotactical probability were also controlled for the second experiment. In total, data from 18 native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese subjects were collected. The results suggest it is easier to distinguish allophones depending on lexical status and stress context, as per the initial hypothesis. Results are discussed under the viewpoint of the theories of Articulatory Phonology and Exemplar Theory (AU) | |