Palatalização regressiva das oclusivas alveolares em Alagoas

Abstract

This work goal to investigate the phonetic/phonological processes of regressive palatalization of alveolar stops produced in Brazilian Portuguese spoken in Alagoas from the perspective of Variationist Sociolinguistics (LABOV, 2008 [1972]), contrasting the linguistic data collected with internal variables (previous context, syllable position, target consonant, word size and trigger nature) and external (age, sex/gender, education and diatopic distribution), in order to identify possible conditions of use of the palatalized variant and analyze whether the process of regressive palatalization reflects a stable variation or change in progress. In the treatment of the phonological variant, the theory of features is used as a theoretical-methodological contribution (CLEMENTS; HUME, 1995). To carry out the research, we used the database of the Português Alagoano Project (PORTAL) and the computer program R, in its integrated environment platform Rstudio to perform the statistical analyses. The research seeks to analyze the processes of regressive palatalization in the three main mesoregions of the state - Maceió, Arapiraca and Delmiro Gouveia, considering that, in several regions of Brazil, this regressive context has been quite common in the speaking communities of the South and Southeast, North and Northeast of Brazil (HORA, 1990; BISOL, 1991; 1997; DUTRA, 2007, HENRIQUE; HORA, 2012; DA HORA 1990; SOUZA NETO 2008; CRISTOFÁRO SILVA, 2012) in words like "[]ia" and “[]ia”. In this study, it was possible to conclude that the regressive palatalization in the speech community of Alagoas is in an apparent expansion process, going from the coast to the interior of the state.