thaïs cristófaro-silva (ufmg-kcl) christine guedri (ufmg-ut) leonardo almeida (ufmg) phonological...
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Thaïs Cristófaro-Silva (UFMG-KCL)
Christine Guedri (UFMG-UT)
Leonardo Almeida (UFMG)
Phonological traces in the loss of a plural marker
in Brazilian Portuguese
The Loss of Plural Mark
In Brazilian Portuguese the loss of plural mark occurs in nouns and adjectives:Regular Plural:
“os meninos bonitos” “os menino bonito” “the handsome boys”
“uns dias chuvosos” “uns dia chuvoso” “some rainy days”
Irregular Plural: “os leões” “os leão” “the lions” “os anéis” “os anel” “the rings” “as cores” “as cor” “the colors” “os meses” “os mês” “the months”
Research Design
The experiment was held in Belo Horizonte, the third largest city in Brazil;
8 subjects: 4 female and 4 male;
2 age groups: less than 25 and over 40;
2 education levels: University Educated and 8th Grade Education.
Structural Factors
Words ending in fricative ;
Monosyllabic and disyllabic words;
Portuguese oral vowels:
Style: Elicitation, reading a word list, reading in context;
Words Selected
Monosyllable Dissyllable
// xis ‘letter x’ nariz ‘nose’
// vez ‘turn’ Chinês ‘chinese’
// dez ‘number ten’ viés ‘habit’
// gás ‘gas’ rapaz ‘lad’
// Kôs ‘inv. name for a game’ arroz ‘rice’
// voz ‘voice’ Queiróz ‘family name’
// luz ‘light’ capuz ‘hood’
Lenited Forms
Lenition occurs where the high vowel in the plural marker is deleted and a series of two fricatives merge, for example the word for months:
+
Occurrence of Lenited Forms Acoustic properties of the word itself, the duration of
the primarily stressed vowel and the duration of the final sibilant were accessed. Acoustic analysis was carried out with PRAAT and statistical analysis with Matlab.
Tokens Evaluated:14 words x 3 speech styles x 8 subjects = 336 tokens
Lenition occurred in:101 of 336 tokens, corresponding to 30.1% of the words.
Lenition – Type of Vowel
Monosyllabic Disyllabic Total// 5 of 24 9 of 24 14 29.1%// 8 of 24 9 of 24 17 35.4%// 6 of 24 9 of 24 15 31.2%// 7 of 24 8 of 24 15 31.2%// 7 of 24 5 of 24 12 25.0%// 9 of 24 6 of 24 15 31.2%// 6 of 24 7 of 24 13 27.1%
Total 48 of 168 53 of 168 101 30.1%
Lenition – Type of Speech
Reading
a ListElicitation
Reading
in Context
17 of 112 (15.2%)
34 of 112 (30.4%)
49 of 112 (43.8%)
• This expresses lenition occurrence in the different speech styles.
Lenition – Token Frequency (1)Word
% of Lenition
Token Frequency
Word% of
LenitionToken
Frequency
//xis
20.8 0
nariz 37.5 143
// vez 33.3 81,220Chinês 37.5 3,841
// dez 25.0 0viés 37.5 25
// gás 29.2 1,979rapaz 33.3 3,255
// Kôs 29.2 0arroz 20.8 2
// voz 37.5 4,919Queiróz 25.0 0
// luz 25.0 3,076capuz 29.2 103
Lenition –Token Frequency (2)
Xis Dez Kos Queiroz Arroz Vies Capuz Nariz Gas Luz Rapaz Chines Voz Vez0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
Frequency
% o
f L
en
itio
n
% of Lenition x Frequency
Lenition – Token Frequency (3)
Invented Log <= 1 Log > 1 and <= 8 Log > 80
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35% of Lenition X Log Frequency
Log Frequency
% o
f L
en
itio
n
Lenghtening of Vowels and Fricatives What are the consequences of lenition? Is a segment
categorically lost and simply disappear? May it leave traces in the speech signal? We formulated the following hypothesis:
H0: “Plural vowels and fricatives are longer than singular vowels and fricatives”
Singular
duration mean(std)
in ms
Plural
duration mean(std)
in ms
P-Value
Vowels 0.177(0.077) 0.189(0.060) 0.89
Fricatives 0.206(0.101) 0.258(0.099) 0.99
Distribution of Vowel and Fricatives Length
Gradualness in Change
Evidence has been offered for the gradual implementation of sound changes in the lexicon through patterns of lexical diffusion (Bybee, 2001).
A question which arises from this observation regards the nature of representations: are they categorical or gradient?
Spectogram – “Chinêses” (1)
•The word “Chinêses” (Chineses) without lenition.
Spectogram – “Chinêses” (2)
• Word “Chinêses” (Chineses) with plural mark almost disappearing.
Spectogram – “Chinêses” (3)
• Word “Chinêses” (Chineses) when lenition occurs.
Spectogram – “Capuz”
• Word “Capuz” (Hood) singular and plural for the same speaker
Vowel – 123 ms
Fricative – 274 ms
Vowel – 135 ms
Fricative – 347 ms
Conclusion
Lenition is very common in the plural of BP words with final –Vs, it ocurred in 30% of the studied cases.
Lenition is not related with final vowel or words being monosyllabic or disyllabic;
The loss of plural mark is directly correlated with the log frequency of the words;
Vowels and Fricatives get longer when lenition occurs;
Lenition in BP is a gradual process.
Questions?
Cristófaro-Silva – [email protected] Guedri – [email protected] Almeida – [email protected]
http://www.projetoaspa.org/35lsrl