Análise variacionista da síncope em proparoxítonas no português alagoano

Abstract

Based on the theoretical-methodological assumptions of variationist sociolinguistics, this research proposes to identify and analyze the linguistic phenomenon of proparoxytone syncope in Portuguese spoken in the state of Alagoas. inhibiting contexts seeking to understand the implications of phonological theories and analysis of syncope in Portuguese. This phenomenon consists in the reduction of proparoxytonous words to paroxytones due to the loss of the medial vowel (cup ~ xicra, tree ~ arvre). The research is part of the project “Linguistic Variation in Portuguese Alagoas - PORTAL”, whose main objective is the constitution of a database of Alagoas speaking. The sample is stratified by gender and male and female, elementary school (up to 8 years of school) and higher (above 11 years of school) and age group (between 18 to 35 years, 40 to 55 years and above). 60 years old). Speech data from eight cities of Alagoas are analyzed: Arapiraca, Chapel, Delmiro Gouveia, Maceió, Penedo, Palmeira dos Indios, Santana do Ipanema, Sao Miguel dos Milagres and União dos Palmares. The transcription of the interviews was orthographic using the PRAAT software. A total of 1,788 proparoxytones were identified, of which 912 had syncope, representing 51% of deletions. Data were analyzed using multilevel logistic regression. We conclude that there is no evidence of linguistic change in progress. Among women, the variation is stable. Among men, younger men behave like women, disfavoring syncope. It is possible that there is a process of change in progress among men and that they are also moving towards a process of stable variation in the future. There is no interference of schooling in the process. Linguistically, we conclude that syncope is favored by the erasure of final syllables, high vowels, when proparoxyton does not occupy the last place of the phonological phrase and a high number of pretonic syllables. We believe that proparoxytone syncope may have a more phonetic origin than phonological origin, that is, phonological principles and phonotactic restrictions exert less influence than other studies on the subject claim.