Análise perceptual da harmonia vocálica na fala Belenense

Abstract

The present work aims to investigate, perceptually, the productivity of vowel harmony (VH) triggered by low vowels in the variety of Portuguese spoken in Belém, PA (Brazil). To this goal, a corpus was formed with 42 paroxytone words, mostly in the CV'CV.CV syllabic mold, in which /e/ and /o/ alternate in the pretonic syllable and /i, e, ɛ, a, ᴐ, o, u/, in the tonic syllable. Using the Wideo Text-to-Speech Software converter, three variants were generated as sound stimuli for each item in the corpus, according to the height of the pretonic vowel: for </e/>, [i], [e ], [E]; for </o/>, [u], [o], [O]. A sample of 60 Belenenses (people from Belém), stratified by gender, age group and education, responded to a questionnaire implemented on the Gorilla Experiment BuilderTM platform, version 4, with two data collection protocols: I - Frequency Assessment (FA); II - Identification Assessment (IA). For the FA, the main protocol, participants attributed to the variants of </e/>, </o/> an approximate frequency of occurrence/use in Belenense speech, based on the following scalar indexes: Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Almost always. In the IA, the participants’ assessment was taken to identify the three variants as, in fact, different. For the statistical treatment of the 10,080 data collected, Simple Correlation and Binary Logistic Regression analyzes were applied, using the R Program, version 2024.04.1. Taking </e/>, </o/> as dependent variables and the seven stressed vowels as independent ones, the results revealed that, in Belém's speech, in general, based on the choice of the full occurrence index, Almost always: (a) the high variants are the least frequent – [i], with a relative frequency of .13 and [u], with .20; (b) the medium variants are largely predominant, adjusting relatively well to all stressed vowels – [e], .77 and [o], .75; (c) the low variants are in second place as most frequent – [E], .43 and [O], .41 –, but, strongly attracted by low stressed vowels, they take the hegemony of the mids in this structural context – [E] , .82; [O], .78. Finally, for the external factors: (a) older speakers highlighted the hegemony of VH – [E], .83; [O], .83; (b) younger speakers attenuated it – [E], .72; [O], .65; c) individuals trained in the research area had higher discrimination rates between the three variants in IA – </e/>, .89; </o/>, .87. In this view, in the perceptual field, a phonological rule of HV triggered by low vowels was attested in full operation in Belém speech, as acoustic studies had already pointed out (Sousa, 2010; Fagundes, 2015; Souza, 2020). The phenomenon proved to be productive with all low vowels in stressed syllables, both on </e/> and </o/>, contradicting, at this specific point, the acoustic signal (Souza, 2020).