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. 112–133

The yes-no question contour in Brazilian Portuguese

A geographical continuum

| University of Lisbon, Faculty of Letters, Center of Linguistics, Portugal
| University of Lisbon, Faculty of Letters, Center of Linguistics, Portugal
The main goal of this paper is to provide a phonological analysis of neutral yes-no questions in Brazilian Portuguese in seven varieties (Paraíba, Sergipe, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul), most of them spoken along the Atlantic Coast. The analysis followed the autosegmental-metrical framework (Ladd, 2008), and the P-ToBI system for intonational labeling (Frota et al., 2015a; Frota, Oliveira, Cruz, & Vigário, 2015c). The distribution of the nuclear contour indicates a geographical continuum, where a rising contour is found in the North and a rising-falling contour in the Center-Southern regions.
Keywords: intonation, yes-no question, autosegmental-metrical analysis, Brazilian Portuguese
Published online: 02 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.14.04cas
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