Thaïs Cristófaro-Silva (UFMG-KCL) Christine Guedri (UFMG-UT) Leonardo Almeida (UFMG) Phonological traces in the loss of a plural marker in Brazilian Portuguese.

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