Distribuição das vogais médias abertas no Yaathe

Abstract

In the present work, we propose an analysis of open mean vowels in the Yaathe indigenous language. Located in Águas Belas, Pernambuco, the Fulni-ô village carries with it a cultural load of great relevance to linguistic studies, as over time we have noticed the erasure of the native languages of the Northeastern indigenous ethnic groups, and the Fulni people. ô preserves both their language and the culture of the people themselves. We conducted a study based on on-site data collection, with the purpose of describing the linguistic phenomenon that we dealt with in this paper, the distribution of open mean vowels. We use theorists such as Silva (1015) and Souza (2017), who conducted a study on the vowels, an important analysis for our study, as it emphasizes the vowels, the distribution. For analysis and general arguments on the subject, we use the methodological theoretical assumptions of Silva (2011), Silva (2016), Costa (1999), Costa (2015) and Souza (2017). Regarding the research and the result of the work, for a previous analysis, we used existing words in the Database of the Yaathe Indigenous Language Documentation Project (Fulni-ô). Then we use the words we collect with the informants (see attached), and from the analysis, we observe the use of open mean vowels in different environments. The results showed that some morphophonological processes occur that generate long open vowels in the tongue, but there are also long open vowels that can be considered phonological. Medium open vowels / ɛ / and / ɔ / - both short and long - when they come in contact with nasal consonants, they do not simply pass to the nasal, but lose a degree of openness, becoming like the upper middle anterior vowel [ẽ ].