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Part of
Current Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics
Edited by Diego Pascual y Cabo and Idoia Elola
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 27] 2020
► pp. 189–214

Chapter 9
On the origins of Portuguese para form variation

Acoustic evidence from reading style

 | Arizona State University
This study explores the origins of Brazilian Portuguese para ‘to, for’ form variation using sociophonetic analytic techniques to test various properties of the unreduced para variant. While the pra variant was suggested to have originated from an intertonic syncope process, the finding in this study that unreduced para is produced with lexical stress calls such an origin into question. Since unreduced para o tends to be produced lacking the second /a/, para + Article’s low reduction rate to pra in previous studies may be a consequence of its participation in a word-boundary reduction process. Reduction of para to pra therefore appears to be a case of special reduction that emerged for para to reduce a syllable in other contexts.
Keywords: phonetic reduction, phonological change, frequency effects, sociophonetics, Brazilian Portuguese para
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Brazilian Portuguese para form variation
  • 3.Oral vowels in Brazilian Portuguese
  • 4.Acoustic correlates of the speech sounds under study
  • 5.Research questions
  • 6.Methodology
    • 6.1Participants and data
    • 6.2Measurement procedure
    • 6.3Variables
      • 6.3.1Response variables
      • 6.3.2Moderator
      • 6.3.3Predictors
    • 6.4Data analysis and exclusions
  • 7.Results
    • 7.1Overall reduction of para
    • 7.2Comparative vowel articulations
  • 8.Discussion
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 June 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.27.09gra
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