Phonetic and phonological vowel reduction in Brazilian Portuguese

Phonetica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sejin Oh
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Mixed System ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Phonetic Reduction ◽  
Phonetic Duration

Abstract The present study examines the phonetic and phonological status of vowel reduction in Brazilian Portuguese. In order to compare the effects of duration and metrical structure, we tested the influence of duration on the realization of /a/ in five prosodic positions: word-initial pretonic, word-medial pretonic, tonic, word-medial posttonic, and word-final posttonic. The results revealed that, while both phonetic duration and prosodic position had effects on F1 values for /a/, the categorical effect of prosodic position was much stronger and more reliable. In particular, F1 values for /a/ were best predicted by a two-way distinction between posttonic and non-posttonic syllable positions. Correlations between a vowel’s duration and its F1 frequency were statistically significant but generally weak in all positions. We argue that these findings suggest that vowel reduction in Brazilian Portuguese primarily reflects phonological patterning rather than phonetic undershoot, although there was also evidence for some amount of undershoot. Brazilian Portuguese can therefore be said to have a mixed system of phonological and phonetic reduction. The present study discusses the results in the context of Brazilian Portuguese metrical organization, sound change, and the relation between phonetics and phonology.

Effects of harmony on reduction in Kera

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Short Duration ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Phonetic Reduction ◽  
Phonetic Duration

The reduction of vowels is a popular topic for research, but little has been said about the effects of vowel harmony on vowel reduction. Gendrot and Adda-Decker (2006, 2007) claim that phonetic reduction is linked to the phonetic duration of the vowel so that in short syllables, the vowel converges towards a schwa-like quality. I support this claim in general, but I add the claim that reduction is blocked in vowel harmony domains. Within a harmony domain, even in vowels of short duration, the quality of the vowel retains the quality of the feature which is spreading. This paper demonstrates this with data from Kera, a Chadic language spoken in Chad. I examine fronting, rounding, and height harmony in Kera and confirm the fact that harmony (but not accidental agreement) in some way blocks the reduction. This has implications for the role of harmony and claims concerning privative features. Keywords: phonology; reduction; Kera; vowel harmony; acoustic; formants; duration; blocking; privative

scholarly journals Corpus Phonetics for Under-Documented Languages: A Vowel Harmony Example

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Kempton ◽  
Mary Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Phonetic Reduction ◽  
Phonetic Duration

Corpus phonetics is enabling the comprehensive analysis of large digital speech collections. In this paper, we develop a corpus phonetics workflow that is flexible enough to be easily applied to under-documented languages. To test the capabilities of this workflow we choose a challenging vowel reduction and vowel harmony problem. In Kera (Chadic) it has been shown (Pearce, 2012), that not only is phonetic reduction linked to the phonetic duration of the vowel, but also that reduction is blocked in vowel harmony domains. We are able to replicate previously published experiments by Pearce that were originally completed using manual measurements. We expect that our corpus phonetics workflow will be of value to phonologists working on other languages.

scholarly journals Special reduction: a usage-based approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOAN BYBEE ◽  
RICHARD J. FILE-MURIEL ◽  
RICARDO NAPOLEÃO DE SOUZA
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Phonological Representation ◽  
Exemplar Model ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Colombian Spanish ◽  
History Of ◽  
Phonetic Reduction ◽  
Over Time

abstract‘Special reduction’ refers to instances of extreme phonetic reduction which is restricted to particular words or phrases, usually grammaticalizing constructions (going to > [gə̃ɾ̃ə̃]), greetings (hi from how are you), discourse markers (Spanish o sea > sa), or other sequences that are often used together. On the basis of data from English, Brazilian Portuguese, and Colombian Spanish, we argue that special reduction is based on the general phonetic tendencies in the language, but that these tendencies are carried to an extreme where word sequences are used with high frequency and become chunked, allowing formerly stressed syllables to lose stress and reduce. The data also show that special reduction takes place gradually over time, and reflects general patterns of change seen in the history of the language. In fact, in some examples, special reduction presages more general sound changes that occur later. We argue that the gradual phonetic changes that accumulate for particular words or phrases, eventually changing them dramatically, requires an exemplar model for the phonological representation of words and phrases, which is updated continually as sequences are used and affected by reductive phonetic processes.

scholarly journals Phonological Variation and Prosodic Representation: Clitics in Portuguese-Veneto Contact

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-427
Author(s):  
Natália Brambatti Guzzo ◽  
Guilherme Duarte Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
The Difference

Abstract In a variety of Brazilian Portuguese in contact with Veneto, variable vowel reduction in clitic position can be partially accounted for by the phonotactic profile of clitic structures. We show that, when phonotactic profile is controlled for, vowel reduction is statistically more frequent in non-pronominal than in pronominal clitics, which indicates that these clitic types are represented in separate prosodic domains. We propose that this difference in frequency of reduction between clitic types is only possible due to contact with Veneto, which, unlike standard BP, does not exhibit vowel reduction in clitic position. Contact thus provides speakers with the possibility of producing clitic vowels without reduction, and the resulting variation is used to signal prosodic distinctions between clitic types. We show that the difference in frequency of reduction is larger for older speakers, who are more proficient in Veneto and use the language regularly.

scholarly journals Probing rhythmic patterns in English-L2: a preliminary study on vowel reduction by Brazilian learners at different ages

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Mangueira Lima Jr ◽  
Guilherme Duarte Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Initial Exposure ◽  
Formal Instruction ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Categorical Classification ◽  
Preliminary Study

Languages are traditionally classified as mora-timed, syllable-timed or stress-timed in relation to their rhythmic patterns. The distinction between syllable-timed and stress-timed languages, however, lacks solid evidence in the literature. Syllable-timed languages typically have similar duration across unstressed and stressed syllables, whereas stress-timed languages tend to have similar inter-stress intervals, and unstressed syllables are shorter than stressed syllables. According to this categorical classification, English is a stress-timed language, thus having more reduction in unstressed vowels. Brazilian Portuguese, on the other hand, is typically classified as syllable-timed, and thus has little reduction of unstressed vowels. If these categorical rhythmic differences are correct, then acquiring the rhythmic patterns of English should be a challenging task to Brazilian learners, who are not expected to produce unstressed vowels with asmuch reduction as English native speakers. However, recent studies have found that the typology of rhythm is best understood as not categorical, but rather gradient, and that Brazilian Portuguese has a mixed classification, with more stress timing than would be expected from a traditional and categorical perspective. We therefore hypothesize that Brazilian learners of English should not have major difficulties reducing unstressed vowels, even when exposed to the second language later in life. To test this hypothesis, we analyze production data of native speakers of English (control group) and two groups of Brazilian advanced learners of English who differ in their age of initial exposure to formal instruction. The results show that neither group of learners is credibly different from the control group, which is consistent with the hypothesis that the mixed rhythm present in Brazilian Portuguese in fact facilitates the acquisition of the rhythmic patterns of English, a stress-timed language, at least in terms of unstressed vowel reduction.

scholarly journals Gradience in prosodic representation: vowel reduction and neoclassical elements in Brazilian Portuguese

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natália Brambatti Guzzo ◽  
Guilherme Duarte Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Production Rates ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Reduction Processes

In Brazilian Portuguese, neoclassical elements (NCEs) may combine with both independent lexical words (e.g., psico in psicolinguística ‘psycholinguistics’) and non- lexical words (e.g., psico in psicologia ‘psychology’). This has led to the proposal that they have distinct prosodic representations depending on the type of structure that they form: NCE+Indep(endent lexical word) prosodizes recursively in the PWd, whereas NCE+Dep(endent form) prosodizes as a simple PWd. However, both NCE+Indep and NCE+Dep are subject to vowel reduction processes that yield similar surface forms: the NCE in NCE+Indep is targeted by word-final raising, and the NCE in NCE+Dep is targeted by raising in pretonic position. This similarity in surface forms poses a problem for the proposal of separate prosodic representations, as different forms of prosodization imply different phonological behavior. We analyze native speakers’ judgements and productions with respect to reduction of the NCE-final vowel under the hypothesis that, if these NCE structures are prosodized differently and undergo different processes, the process that is more frequent in the Brazilian Portuguese grammar (word-final raising) should have higher acceptance and production rates. Results confirm our hypothesis. We argue that the gradient application of phonological processes reflects prosodic dis- tinctions that cannot be captured in a framework that only considers the application or non-application of said processes.

Vowel Reduction in Israeli Heritage Russian

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-133
Author(s):  
Daniel Asherov ◽  
Alon Fishman ◽  
Evan-Gary Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Mixed System ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Russian Speakers ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
Productive System ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Adult Immigrants ◽  
Contemporary Standard

This study examines vowel reduction patterns of Israeli Heritage Russian speakers (IHRs). Contemporary Standard Russian is well documented as having a complex system of vowel reduction (e.g., Barnes, 2002; Crosswhite, 1999; Jakobson, 1929; Padgett, 2004): specifically, underlying /o/ surfaces as [o] in stressed syllables, as [ɐ] in the first pretonic syllable, and as [ə] in other unstressed syllables. In Modern Hebrew, on the other hand, stressed and unstressed vowels differ in duration, but not in quality (Cohen, Silber-Varod, & Amir, in preparation; Maymon, 2001). We conducted a production experiment to determine the patterns of vowel reduction in the Russian of IHRs. Sixteen IHRs were exposed to audiobased forms of real and nonce words with stressed /o/ and were required to produce the forms with and without stressed suffixes. Thus, underlying /o/ was produced in three distinct prosodic positions: stressed (e.g., /nos/ ‘nose sg.’), pretonic (e.g., /nos- ̍ɨ/ ‘nose pl.’), and antepretonic (e.g., /nos-o ̍voj/ ‘nasal.’). The quantity (duration) and quality (F1, F2) of /o/ were acoustically analyzed and compared to a control group of five Russian-speaking adult immigrants to Israel. The results showed that IHRs reduced unstressed /o/ in both real and nonce words, but in producing nonce words they did not display the height contrast that is expected between pretonic and antepretonic vowels. We argue that IHRs’ productions of real words may be rote-learnt, whereas their treatment of nonce words better reflects their productive grammar. We propose that IHRs’ productive system of vowel reduction is a mixed system, combining aspects of their heritage language (i.e., Russian) and dominant language (i.e., Hebrew).

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