Abstract

TORNQUIST MAZZAFERRO, Gabriela  and  BARRETO MATZENAUER, Carmen Lucia. THE BEHAVIOR OF FINAL POSTONIC VOWELS ON THE BORDER BETWEEN BRAZIL AND URUGUAY. Lingüística [online]. 2019, vol.35, n.1, pp.57-79.  Epub June 01, 2019. ISSN 2079-312X.  https://doi.org/10.5935/2079-312x.20190004.

This paper analyzes the behavior of the final postonic mid vowels in Portuguese spoken in five Brazilian cities which are located near the Uruguayan border, in Rio Grande do Sul state.

In the search for a mapping of frontier Portuguese, the study started from the hypothesis of the existence of differences between it and Portuguese spoken in other areas in the state and in the country, considering the contact with Spanish, whose vowel system is distinct regarding its structure and functioning. The particularity of frontier Portuguese was confirmed by the description and analysis of data provided by 40 informants, who were submitted to a sociolinguistic interview. Results showed that there are specificities that make frontier Portuguese and Portuguese spoken in other Brazilian regions drift apart, i. e., the former has higher preservation index of mid vowels, mainly the coronal vowel /e/. The fact that atonicity triggers the process that changes the height of final postonic mid vowels was formalized by the support of the Stochastic Optimality Theory.

Keywords : final postonic mid vowels; Portuguese/Spanish contact; mapping of frontier Portuguese; Stochastic Optimality Theory.

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