Chapter published in:
Studies on Variation in Portuguese
Edited by Pilar P. Barbosa, Maria da Conceição de Paiva and Celeste Rodrigues
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 14] 2017
► pp. 24–47

Stressed vowels of European Portuguese in spontaneous speech

| University of Toronto, Canada
| University of Lisbon, Portugal
| University of Minho, Portugal
We analyzed speech data of two corpora collected with a 15–17-year gap in Braga, Portugal, to study the acoustic features of European Portuguese (EP) vowels in spontaneous speech, and to understand whether the vowels produced in this northern dialect are acoustically distinct from those of the standard variety, and if diachronic changes occurred in vowel quality. The results revealed that vowels in the speech of Braga are more open, the front vowels are more centralized, and the back vowels are less back than in the Lisbon variety, suggesting the existence of phonetic contrasts in these regional varieties of EP. Differences in vowel quality between the two speech corpora were also found; however, they may not suggest diachronic change, but rather the effect of a methodological factor in data collection.
Keywords: Braga’s speech variety, stressed vowel system, spontaneous speech, diachronic change
Published online: 02 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.14.01rat
References

References

Andrade, E. d’
(1977) Aspects de la phonologie (generative) du Portugais. Lisboa: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica.Google Scholar
Albuquerque, L., Oliveira, A., Teixeira, A., Sá-Couto, P., Freitas, J., & Dias, M. S.
(2014) Impact of age in the production of European Portuguese vowels. In Interspeech 2014, Singapore (pp. 940–944).
Barbosa, J. M.
(1994) Fonologia e morfologia do Português. Coimbra: Almedina.Google Scholar
Barbosa, P., Rato, A., Barroso, H., Santos, I., Teixeira, J. P., … & Paiva, M. C.
(2014) Perfil sociolinguístico da fala bracarense [Corpus]. Available at http://​cehum​.ilch​.uminho​.pt​/fala​_bracarense<
Barroso, H.
(1999) Forma e substância da expressão da língua Portuguesa. Coimbra: Almedina.Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D.
(2013) Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer. (Version 5.3.73). Retrieved from http://​www​.praat​.org​/>
Brissos, F., & Rodrigues, C.
(2016) Vocalismo acentuado do Noroeste português – descrição acústica, variação dialectal e representação fonológica. Revue Romane, 5(1), 1–35. Crossref.Google Scholar
Delgado-Martins, M. R.
(2002, [1973]) Análise acústica das vogais tónicas do português. In M. R. Delgado-Martins (Ed.), Fonética do Português. Trinta anos de investigação (pp. 41–52). Lisboa: Editorial Caminho.Google Scholar
(2002 [1975]) Vogais e consoantes do Português: estatística de ocorrências, duração e intensidade. In R. M. Delgado-Martins (Ed.), Fonética do Português. Trinta anos de investigação (pp. 53–63). Lisboa: Editorial Caminho.Google Scholar
(1988) Ouvir falar. Introdução à fonética do Português. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho.Google Scholar
Escudero, P., Boersma, P., Rauber, A., & Bion, R.
(2009) A cross-dialect acoustic description of vowels: Brazilian and European Portuguese. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 126(3), 1379–1393. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Falé, I.
(1997) Duração das vogais tónicas e fronteiras prosódicas: uma análise em estruturas coordenadas. In Associação Portuguesa de Linguística (1997) Actas do XIII Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística (Vol. 1, pp. 255–269). Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Linguística.Google Scholar
Fant, G.
(1960) Acoustic theory of speech production. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Harrington, J.
(2007) Evidence for a relationship between synchronic variability and diachronic change in the Queen’s annual Christmas broadcasts. Laboratory Phonology, 9, 125–144.Google Scholar
Hayward, K.
(2000) Experimental phonetics. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Johnson, K.
(2006) Resonance in an exemplar-based lexicon: The emergence of social identity and phonology. Journal of Phonetics, 34, 485–499. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kaur, J., & Narang, V.
(2015) Variation of pitch and formants in different age group. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Modern Education, 1(1), 517–521.Google Scholar
Labov, W.
(1966) The social stratification of English in New York city. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
(1994) Principles of linguistic change, Volume I: Internal Factors. London: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
(2001) Principles of linguistic change: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lehiste, I.
(1970) Suprasegmentals. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Martins, F.
(1995) Modelo de reconhecimento de fala para a língua portuguesa: As invariantes fonéticas e a programação por objectos. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universidade de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Mateus, M. H. M.
(1982) Aspectos da fonologia portuguesa. Lisboa: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Científica.Google Scholar
(1990) Fonética, fonologia e morfologia do português. Lisboa: Universidade Aberta.Google Scholar
Mateus, M. H. M., & Andrade, E. dʹ.
(2000) The phonology of Portuguese. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Mateus, M. H. M., Falé, I., & Freitas, M. J.
(2005) Fonética e fonologia do português. Lisboa: Universidade Aberta.Google Scholar
Rato, A.
(2013) Cross-language perception and production of English vowels by Portuguese learners: The effects of perceptual training. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://​repositorium​.sdum​.uminho​.pt
Rodrigues, C.
(2002) Questões de espraiamento em PE. In A. Gonçalves & C. N. Correia (Eds.), Actas do XVII Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística, (pp. 419–432). Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Linguística.Google Scholar
(2003) Lisboa e Braga: Fonologia e variação. Lisboa: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.Google Scholar
(2012) Variantes não-standard e tipo de discurso: (Des)encontro de resultados. In A. Costa & I. Duarte (Eds.), Nada na linguística lhe é estranho. Homenagem a Isabel Hub Faria (pp. 215–227). Lisboa: Afrontamento.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, C., & Martins, F.
(1999) Espaço acústico das vogais acentuadas de Braga. In R. V. Castro & P. Barbosa (Eds.), Actas do XV Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística (Vol. II, pp. 301–317). Braga: Associação Portuguesa de Linguística.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, C., Rato, A., & Silva, A. C.
(2014) Stressed vowels in European Portuguese: A comparative acoustic study of three corpora. Paper presented at the 1st International Symposium on Variation in Portuguese, Universidade do Minho, Braga, April 2014.
Santos, G. B.
(2013) Análise Fonético-Acústica das vogais orais e nasais do Português: Brasil e Portugal. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://​repositorio​.bc​.ufg​.br​/tede​/handle​/tede​/3719<
Tyler, K., & Thomas, E. R.
(2010) Vowels: Vowel manipulation, normalization, and plotting (Version 1.1.) Available at http://​ncslaap​.lib​.ncsu​.edu​/tools​/norm/
Varanda, P.
(2015) Estudo acústico de /a/ acentuado na fala bracarense: Potenciais aplicações. (Unpublished master’s thesis). Retrieved from http://​repositorium​.sdum​.uminho​.pt<
Watson, P. J., & Munson, B.
(2007) A comparison of vowel acoustics between older and younger adults. Proceeding of ICPhS2007 (pp. 561–564). Retrieved from: http://​www​.icphs2007​.de​/conference​/Papers​/1453​/1453​.pdf