From Reduction to Apocope: Final Poststressed Vowel Devoicing in Brazilian Portuguese

Autor(es)

Meneses, Francisco ^[1] ; Albano, Eleonora ^{[1, 2]}

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Estadual Campinas, Inst Language Studies, Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[2] CNPq, Brazilian Natl Res Council, Brasilia, DF - Brazil

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: PHONETICA; v. 72, n. 2-3, p. 121-137, 2015.
• Citações Web of Science: 3

Resumo

This is a study of final poststressed vowel devoicing following /s/ in Brazilian Portuguese. We contradict the literature describing it as deletion by arguing, first, that the vowel is not deleted, but overlapped and devoiced by the /s/, and, second, that gradient reduction with devoicing may lead to apocope diachronically. The following results support our view: (1) partially devoiced vowels are centralized; (2) centralization is inversely proportional to duration; (3) total devoicing is accompanied by lowering of the /s/ centroid; (4) the /s/ noise seems to be lengthened when the vowel is totally devoiced; (5) aerodynamic tests reveal that lengthened /s/ has a final vowel-like portion, too short to be voiced; (6) lengthened /s/ favors vowel recovery in perceptual tests. This seems to be a likely path from reduction to devoicing to listener-based apocope. (C) 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 10/04902-0 - Estudo das vogais desvozeadas do português brasileiro: efeitos da relação CV e VC
• Beneficiário: Francisco de Oliveira Meneses
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Mestrado