Sistema Fonológico do Português: Rediscutindo o Consenso

Problems identified in the study and analysis of the phonology of Brazilian Indian languages belonging to the Macro-Jê branch such as Kaingang, Maxakali, and Mebengokre led the author to confirm the accuracy of some intuitions on the part of Piggott (1992) and Rice (1993) on dealing with relations between nasality and sonorancy (D'Angelis 1998). The applicability of the approach to the distinct processes of nasality and nasalization in Portuguese was verified with surprising results that recover some intuitions of Trubetzkoy (1939) and contribute to reconfirm the Mattoso Câmara's (1953; 1970) considerations, but at the same time go beyond them. This article presents the result of this investigation and its conclusions that suggest the validity and the necessity of reexamining even the phonemic inventory of the Portuguese language, an issue not at all questioned in the teaching of phonology, to take into account the linguistic changes in the phonological system of that language in the last fifty years.

Assessment of Severe Apnoea through Voice Analysis, Automatic Speech, and Speaker Recognition Techniques

This study is part of an ongoing collaborative effort between the medical and the signal processing communities to promote research on applying standard Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) techniques for the automatic diagnosis of patients with severe obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Early detection of severe apnoea cases is important so that patients can receive early treatment. Effective ASR-based detection could dramatically cut medical testing time. Working with a carefully designed speech database of healthy and apnoea subjects, we describe an acoustic search for distinctive apnoea voice characteristics. We also study abnormal nasalization in OSA patients by modelling vowels in nasal and nonnasal phonetic contexts using Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) pattern recognition on speech spectra. Finally, we present experimental findings regarding the discriminative power of GMMs applied to severe apnoea detection. We have achieved an 81% correct classification rate, which is very promising and underpins the interest in this line of inquiry.

Adaptações fonológicas na pronúncia de estrangeirismos do inglês por falantes de português brasileiro

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Vogais na Amazônia paraense

Este artigo trata essencialmente de uma apresentação das ações do projeto institucional Norte Vogais vinculado ao Diretório Nacional PROBRAVO. O artigo fornece uma ideia precisa de como a equipe da UFPA vinculada ao PROBRAVO está conduzindo suas investigações sobre a variedade do português falada no Pará. O projeto Norte Vogais conta com amostras de fala de trezentos e dezoito informantes nativos do Pará no seu banco de dados. As descrições sociolinguísticas empreendidas pela equipe da UFPA priorizaram a investigação de três aspectos fonéticos em particular: a) a variação das vogais médias pretônicas; b) a variação das vogais médias postônicas mediais e; c) a nasalidade alofônica. Os resultados obtidos reforçam a hipótese de Silva Neto (1957) de que o Pará compreenderia uma ilha dialetal na classificação de Antenor Nascente entre os dialetos do Norte do Brasil. Com o objetivo de refinar as descrições sociolingüísticas, duas novas ações se impuseram: a) o mapeamento da situação sociolinguística das áreas de contato interdialetal no Pará e; b) a análise acústica do sistema vocálico do português falado na Amazônia Paraense.

Optimality theory and historical phonology: an example from nasal harmony in Mundurukú

Este trabalho pretende mostrar que a Teoria da Otimidade proporciona novas formas para explicar mudanças de som que não a re-ordenação no ranqueamento deconstraints. Ele examina os aspectos diacrônicos de harmonia nasal na família Mundurukú, tronco Tupi. A comparação entre os sistemas modernos de Mundurukú e Kuruaya salienta que o sistema original, Proto-Mundurukú, tem propriedades semelhantes às atualmente observadas em Kuruaya. Em especial, os alvos do espalhamento de nasalidadeincluiamoclusivas sonoras e soantes, enquanto que as obstruintes surdas eram transparentes. Esse sistema evoluiu para outro em Pré-Munduruku, quando novos contrastes foram introduzidos na língua, transformando obstruintes em segmentos opacos e, portanto, bloqueando a nasalização. A análise, formalizada dentro da Teoria da Otimidade, demonstra que não houve uma re-ordenação dos constraints harmônicos; eles apenas se tornaram mais restritos, como mostra a cronologia relativa que deu origem ao sistema moderno de Mundurukú. Além disso, o estudo discute também as consequências dessa mudança para a gramática sincrônica, e como isso explica as irregularidades do processo.

A escrita de /an/ por pré escolares: pistas acústico-auditivas

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

O espraiamento da nasalização do português do Brasil

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A influência da língua inglesa na formação de nomes comerciais: questões de identidade linguística e cultural

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A nasalidade vocálica em português e em espanhol

Pós-graduação em Linguística e Língua Portuguesa - FCLAR

A nasalidade no dialeto quilombola do Norte de Minas: uma análise contrastiva baseada em corpus

This research investigated the nasality of vowels in the spontaneous speech of inhabitants of the quilombola communities of Brejo dos Crioulos and Poções (MG). As a theoretical framework, we based on the assumptions of Phonetics and Phonology, in renowned scholars on the investigation of nasality (CAGLIARI, 1977; CÂMARA JR., 1984, 2013; BISOL, 2013; ABAURRE; PAGOTTO, 1996; SILVA, 2015), with subsidies of the Corpus Linguistics. Its general goal was to investigate the occurrence of nasality, in the dialect of these quilombola communities, and their linguistic behavior, considering the linguistic factors that can interfere in the phenomenon. Specifically it was aimed to a) detect the occurrence of nasalized vowels with the help of the resources that the Corpus Linguistics provides (Praat and WorldSmith Tolls); b) discriminate the different types of occurring contexts of nasalized vowels; c) make quantitative and qualitative analyzes of the nasalized vowels in the study corpus; d) describe and analyze the behavior of nasalized vowels and; e) contrast the values of F1 and F2 of the oral and nasalized vowels. It was hypothesized that the nasality happens because it is conditioned by the nasal segment following the nasalized vowel - phonological process of “assimilation” - its position as the primary stress and grammatical category. It was believed that the quilombolas communities of Brejo dos Crioulos and Poções produce nasalized vowels in their speech and this linguistic phenomenon is favored by the adjacent presence of consonants or nasal vowels. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that the values of F1 and F2 of oral and nasalized vowels in these communities are distinct. The following research questions were elaborated: (i) is the presence of nasalized vowels in the speech of these quilombola communities conditioned to the presence of a nasal sound segment? (ii) does the nasal sound segment following the nasalized vowel favor the occurrence of the nasality phenomenon? is there a difference between the values of F1 and F2 of the oral and nasalized vowels in both quilombola communities considered? To compose our corpus, 24 interviews recordings were used (12 female speakers and 12 male speakers), a total of 24 participants. It was found that the following nasal sound segment tends to condition the nasalized vowel. In general, it assimilates the lowering of the soft palate of nasal consonant segment immediately following, but there are cases of nasal vowel segment - regressive assimilation; the stressed syllable tends to favor the nasality, but it occurs in pretonic and postonic position as well; F1 and F2 values of oral and nasalized vowels in the quilombola communities of Poções and Brejo dos Crioulos are distinct: the group of Brejo dos Crioulos tends to produce the F1 of oral and nasalized vowels more lowered than the group of Poções and the F2, in a more anterior position. The nasality tends to occur in verbs and nouns, although it is not specific to a grammatical category. This research found cases of spurious nasalization, confirming previous studies. In turn, it revealed cases of lexical items with favorable context for nasalization, but with its non-occurrence. This last case, considered as the lowering of the uniform soft palate in PB, presented pronounced vowels without the soft palate lowering. That is, it was detected variation in the phenomenon of nasalization in PB. With this work, it was promoted the discussion about nasality, in order to contribute to the linguistic studies about the functioning of Brazilian Portuguese in this geographical context.

Estratégias para aprender ortografia: O caso da regra contextual nasalização diante de p e b

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Educacional.