Schedule 75. StuTS

This study investigates consonant devoicing in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), in order to assess whether an ongoing sound change is taking place. We examine plural forms consisting of a stop consonant followed by a sibilant word-finally, such as in crepes [kɾɛps] ~ [kɾɛ.pis], potes [pɔts] ~ [pɔ.tʃis], and cheques [ʃɛks] ~ [ʃɛ.kis]. The theoretical framework is mainly grounded on Exemplars Theory (Johnson, 1997; Pierrehumbert, 2001; Bybee, 2001, 2008, 2016), while the methodology follows the principles of Laboratory Phonology (Pierrehumbert; Beckman; Ladd, 2000). Data were collected through recordings of oral production from twenty Brazilian speakers, using reading and picture naming tasks. Sibilant voicing was quantified through the extraction of harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR) values. The harmonic-to-noise ratio is a commonly employed metric for detecting speech pathologies, while also serving as a discriminative tool for distinguishing diverse sounds, notably fricative consonants (Hamann; Sennema, 2005; Maniwa; Jongman; Wade, 2009; Gradoville, 2011). Statistical analysis was conducted using the Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis tests. The results reveal an ongoing devoicing process of consonant clusters at word boundaries in BP. The study's findings indicate the presence of the devoicing phenomenon across all examined cluster types [ps, ts, ks, bs, ds, gs], regardless of the subsequent presence of a vowel, constituting and ongoing sound change. This observation bears resemblance to the word-final devoicing tendencies observed in other Romance languages like European Portuguese (Jesus; Shadle, 2002), Catalan (Carbonell; Llisterri, (2009), French (Jatteau et al., 2019) and Romanian (Hutin et al., 2020). Moreover, the study discerns two phonological patterns employed by individuals: on one hand, sibilants are occasionally voiced due to the presence of a following vowel (e.g., redes argentinas [hedzah.ʒẽ.'tʃi.nəs] 'Argentine hammocks'); on the other hand, they are sometimes unvoiced as a result of consonantal devoicing (e.g., [hetsah.ʒẽ.'tʃi.nəs]), leading to the production of both anticipated and unanticipated forms. The statistical analysis underscores the importance of the adjacent phonological context in relation to sibilant voicing. Moreover, spectrographic analysis found that not only sibilants but also their preceding stops are devoiced. Observations regarding the lexical item variable suggest a tendency to voice the sibilant more strongly when the preceding phonological context is voiced (e.g., plebes [plɛbz], caribes [ka.'ɾibz], sangues [sə̃gz]). Additionally, higher rates of voicing are observed in words that constitute potential minimal pairs (e.g., grades ‘grids’, sedes ‘headquarters’, and ringues ‘rings’, in contrast to grátis ‘free’, setes ‘seven’, and rinques ‘rinks’), possibly aimed at preserving intelligibility. Drawing on the framework of Exemplars Model, the study proposes a competition between the following phonological environment and the phenomenon of consonantal devoicing. We also propose that fine phonetic detail, whether associated with allophonic or emergent sound patterns, contributes to the construction of phonological representations.

Info

Day: 2024-05-10
Start time: 14:00
Duration: 00:30
Room: Fish (33.1.010)
Track: Phonetics and Phonology
Language: en

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