Consonantal position 1
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Chapter 1: The Sounds of Portuguese, by Eyitayo Akomolafe
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2021-12-15T21:53:53+00:00
Introduction
Portuguese, an Indo-European language of Romance origin is the World’s sixth largest language with 221million native speakers (Iman Ghosh). It is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé. It is also one of the official languages of the special administrative region of Macau (with Chinese), East Timor (with Tetum) and Equitorial Guinea (with Spanish and French). Portuguese is also spoken in some region of India – Daman, Diu and Goa. This high number of speakers puts Portuguese in a safe position without any threat of extinction. Just like every other language, there has been concerns of infiltration by the English language. However, an analysis of this infiltration is not part of the goal of this paper. The number of speakers vary from region to region with Brazil as the country with the highest number of speakers which is well over 200million. Angola is the closest to Brazil in terms of the number of speakers as 18million; Mozambique with 10million, Portugal with 9.9million and others ranging between 400,000 to 5600 speakers. The map below shows these different regions where Portuguese is spoken.
Portuguese is said to be a unique version of Latin which was spoken in the isolated northwest part of the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages, the Galician-Portuguese dialects spread south to Portugal during the thirteenth century. After supplanting the Moors, over the next centuries Portuguese sailors would continue to propagate the language. By the seventeenth century, it was spoken in Brazil, African colonies, several island colonies, and parts of India and Southeast Asia. Below is a diagram showing other languages in the Indo-European family.
Despite Portugal being the first native speakers of Portuguese, the geographical position and population of Brazil has made it more prominent in Brazil thereby giving rise to two main dialectal variants of Portuguese which is the Brazillian and European Portuguese. Despite this distinctive difference, the sound patterns are still the same. The prominent differences are in vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntax (Matteus). The focus of this study will be on Brazilian Portuguese; however, reference will be made to European Portuguese from time to time.
According to Wikipedia, the consonants of Portuguese are quite conservative. Since Portuguese has different variants, the number of consonant sounds differ in their presentation. However, for the purpose of this study, I will be adopting the one with the highest number of consonant sounds. The consonants of Portuguese features in eight places of articulation and six manners of articulation as shown in the consonant chart below. Plosive consonants occur in three places of articulation – bilabial, dental and velar; and there are 6 of them. The nasals of Portuguese also occur in three places of articulation. However, the third appearance [ɲ] occurs in the palatal. The trill [R] occurs in the uvular. There are six fricatives, and they appear in three places of articulation. The two approximants occur in two different places of articulation – dental and palatal. Just the same places as the two lateral approximants.
The Consonants of Portuguese
Overall, there are 21 consonant sound segments in Portuguese, and they all appear in different word positions. All the consonants appear at initial word positions except palatal - [ɲ], [ʎ] - and flap -[ɾ] - which appear only in word medial positions (Massini-Cagiliari et al). In the same vein, according to Mateus and Andrade, only the flap [ɾ], the lateral approximant [l], and the voiceless fricative [s] appears in word final positions. The Portuguese consonant inventory is presented in the IPA consonant chart below. However, one consonant phoneme /w/ which also functions as a semivowel is missing in the chart.
The tables below are snips from Clara Calado do Nascimento's (20) presentation of European Portuguese consonantal positions as described by Mateus and Andrade's.
Below are the different consonant sound files used in actual words spoken by a Brazilian. The sound data were gotten from word list 1 of the UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive:
/p/ This is the voiceless bilabial stop in the word poder [ˈpodɛɹ] which means ‘to be able’.
/b/ This is the voiced bilabial stop highlighted in the word bailar [bailaɹ] which means ‘to dance’
/t/ This sound file highlights the voiceless dental stop /t/ in the word tantu [tãntu] which means ‘as much’.
/d/ This sound file highlights the voiced dental stop /d/ in the word cidade [sided] which means ‘city’.
/k/ This sound file presents the voiceless velar stop in the word caco [kaku] which means ‘fragment’
/g/ This sound file presents the voiced velar stop in the word gago [gagu] which means stuttering.
/m/ This presents the bilabial nasal /m/ in the word momento [məmẽnto] which means ‘moment’.
/n/ This is the alveolar nasal highlighted in the word nada [nada] which means nothing.
/ɲ/ The palatal nasal /ɲ/ highlighted in the word vinho [vĩɲo] which means wine.
/f/ The voiceless labiodental fricative as seen in the word flora [floɹa] which means flora.
/v/ The voiced labiodental fricative as seen in the word vaca [vaka] which means ‘cow’.
/s/ The voiceless alveolar fricative as highlighted in the word sefadu [səfadu] which means ‘worn out’
/ʃ/The voiceless postalveolar fricative highlighted in the word xicara which means 'cup'.
/ʒ/
The voiced post alveolar fricative highlighted in the word gelo which means 'house'.
/j/
The palatal approximant highlighted in the word radio which means 'radio'.
/ɹ/
The alveolar approximant highlighted in the word caro which means 'expensive'.
/l/The alveolar approximant highlighted in the word lado which means 'side'.
/ʎ/
The palatal lateral approximant highlighted in the word filho which means 'son'.
/r/
The alveolar trill highlighted in the word porre which means 'to get drunk'.
The Portuguese vowel segments can be described basically according to these specific features: openness, roundness and frontness. Another very distinctive feature of the Portuguese vowel is the presence of nasal vowels. There are 14 vowel sounds in Portuguese. They are further divided into eight oral vowels and five nasal vowels. There have been several arguments surrounding the independence of Portuguese nasal vowels. and this has led to two distinctive perspectives (Joaquim Brandão de 56). As stated earlier, a peculiarity of Portuguese is nasal vowels which contrast with their oral counterparts as presented in the examples below:
The Vowels of Portuguese
cito [situ] ‘I cite’ / cinto [sĩtu]
‘belt’ juta [utɐ] ‘jute’ / junta [ũtɐ] ‘junta’
teta [tetɐ] ‘teat’ / tenta [tẽtɐ]
popa [popɐ] ‘stern’ / pompa [põpɐ] tries’ ‘pomp’ l´a ‘there’ [la] / lã [lɐ̃]
Portuguese also has Diphthongs and triphthongs which may also be nasal, as in pɐ̃o [pɐ̃w] ˜ ‘bread,’ cem [sẽ] ‘hundred,’ quão [kwɐ̃w] ‘how much.’ Muito(s) [mũjtu] ‘very, many’.
In a pilot study of Nasal vowels by Marques, she described the different features of nasalization as both phonological and phonemic in nature. This will be discussed later on in this study. The oral vowels, according to Faria (2003), are also known as the "principal vowels" (3). They are distributed asymmetrically on standard vowel charts with three back vowels (which are all rounded), two central vowels and three front vowels.
The diagram below illustrates the placements of the vowels on a standard chart. The schwa sound which makes the fourteenth vowel and has been contested on several occasions is not included in the diagram below:
Below are some vowel sound files used in actual words spoken by a Brazilian. The sound data were gotten from word list 1 of the UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive:Allophonic Variation
Allophonic variation can be described as the alternative sounds of a particular phoneme. Allophonic variation is best understood with the understanding of allophones which can be said to be sounds which are in complementary distribution. This means that they occur in different linguistic/phonetic environment. The phonetically similar sounds or phonemes in complementary distribution are allophones of the same phoneme. Therefore, allophonic variations are usually determined by the phonetic environment in which the allophones (or sounds) are found or occur.
Some Allophonic Variations in Portuguese
In this section, I will be presenting some allophones in Portuguese phonology. I will begin with some vowel allophones and then to the consonants.
As earlier said under the vowel section, there are eight oral vowels in Portuguese; seven of them can be stressed while one which is the schwa equivalent in English does not take stress. Below are some vowels and their allophone variants:- [ɪ] as in [par̃t̃ɪ] parte ‘part’
[iˠ] as in [fiˠs̆] fiz ‘I did’
[i] as in [il̃a] ilha ‘island’
Are all allophones of the high front rounded vowel /i/- [ẽ ] when it occurs before a nasal consonant
[eˠ] when it occurs in stressed syllable before a sibilant consonant
as in [feˠš] /fes/ fêz ‘he did’
[e] elsewhere
as in [medu] /medu/ mêdo ‘fear’
are all allophones of the front-mid unrounded vowel /e/- /ɛ/ occurs as [ɛˠ] in stressed syllables before a sibilant consonant
and as [ɛ] elsewhere. E.g.:
[tɛlə] /tɛla/ tela ‘canvas’
[sɛlə] /sɛla/ sela ‘saddle’
Are all allophones of the front low unrounded vowel, /ɛ/- Low central unrounded vowel /a/
[bãndə] /banda/ banda 'band'
occurs as [ə̃] before a nasal consonant. E.ɡ.:
[kə̃mə] /kama/ cama 'bed'
occurs as [aˠ] in a stressed syllable. E.ɡ.:
[paˠš] /paš/ paz 'peace'
It occurs as [a] elsewhere. E.ɡ.:
[nadə] /nada/ nada 'nothinɡ'- High back rounded vowel /u/ occurs as:
[nũnkə] /nunka/ nunca 'never'
[uˠ] in a stressed syllable before a sibilant. E.ɡ.:
[puˠš] /pus/ pus 'I put'
[u] elsewhere. E.ɡ.:
[dučə] /duca/ ducha ‘douche’
Some consonant allophones:
According to Massini‐Cagliari, Cagliari, & Rosenbarger (57), the stops [t] and [d] are converted to [ʧ] and [ʤ] whenever they precede a high front [i] vowel. With the process of palatalization. E.g.:
tia [ˈʧi.a] ‘aunt’
dia [ˈʤi.a] ‘day’
In the same vein, coronal fricatives [s] and [z] are allophones of [s]. They also, in the coda position of a syllable, become palatalized leading to different variations. The table below exemplifies this giving example from Brazilian and European Portuguese.
In BP, strong r can be phonetically realized by several allophones, including certain fricatives. In fact, the fricatives [h] and [x] are currently the most frequent realizations of strong r in the majority of BP dialects. In Brazilian Portuguese, there are different allophones of strong r. Sometimes, this includes fricatives. The example below shows the different ways in which some speakers produced the /r/ sound in the word roda which means ‘wheel’ in English:
[ˈhɔ.da] ˈxɔ.da] [ˈrɔ.da] [ˈrɔ.da] (Cagliari 44)
Syllable
A syllable may be defined phonetically as "a unit of sound comprising one or more segments during which there is a single chest pulse and a single peak of sonority or prominence"(Pike 246) and phonemically as "the smallest unit of recurrent phonemic sequences." (Haughen 28). Phonological processes/constraints act upon the syllable as their scope of action, such as stress, tone and pharyngealization. Syllables are stress-bearing units (Hayes 1991), making them an integral part of stress recognition. According to Lacerda, syllable is the articulatory acoustic units of intonation. In the same vein, Ohala describes syllabicity as a perpetual construct which is created in the mind of listeners. This means that the intuition of both speakers and listeners aid their capacity to identify and maneuver the different segments of their language. Before delving into the details of Portuguese syllables, it is important to define syllabification which is “the process of designating a segment to each place within the syllable structure is what is known as syllabification.” (Calado do Nascimento 26). This explains that syllables also have structures/segments which are ‘organized hierarchically’. A syllable must obligatorily contain at least a vowel (which is known as the nucleus). Portuguese is a syllable-timed language.
Syllable Structure
Across languages, the different formats that syllables can take include V, VC, CV, VCC, CVC, CCV, CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC, CVCCC (where V is vowel and C is consonant). In Portuguese, the possible syllable types are: CV, CVC, V, VC, CCV, CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC, VCC. The most common syllable structure in Portuguese is the CV “accounting for 60 percent of the total number of syllables occurring in the houaiss dictionary, which comprises 150,875 words” (CollisChonn & Wetzels 87). Also, a syllable can be classified as either closed or open. A closed syllable is one which end with a consonant while an open syllable ends with a vowel. Portuguese is a mix of both; however, open syllable is more common. A syllable can also have a combination of consonant at the onset or coda and this can be either in the initial or medial position in a word (as shown in the examples below):
prato “dish,”
flor “flower”
mons.tro “monster,”
ins.trumento “instrument”
trans.porte “transportation”
Word initial onset consonant clusters include [pl, pr, bl, br, tr, dr, kr, kl, gr, gl] and word medial are [pr, pl, br, bl, tr, tl, dr, kr, kl, gr, gl] (Calado do Nascimento 27).
As stated earlier, all the consonants (except [ɲ], [ʎ] and [ɾ]) occur at word initial positions. This means that any of these consonants can be the onset in a syllable. Just as other languages, Portuguese has rules guiding the occurrence of consonant clusters. According to Fajia, there is a difference between consonant cluster possibilities in European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). This study will not delve into this difference. As much as possible I will focus on Brazilian Portuguese which does not have any instance of syllabic consonant. I present below, a diagram that simply presents the structure of Portuguese syllable.
The image above is a presentation of the structure of Brazilian Portuguese which shows the different positions in which the Portuguese sound segments can be found in a syllable. [j] and [w] usually functions as semivowels especially as a glide. The coda of a rhyme is either occupied by [s], [z], [ɾ], [x], or left bare. In Portuguese, when an utterance whose last syllable ends in VC is added to another utterance beginning with V, the final consonant of the former forms a syllable with the vowel of the 1atter. For example:
/mar/ mar - ‘sea'
/awtu/ alto - high
/ma-raw-tu/ maralto -high sea
There are severe restrictions to the combination of consonants as onset. An onset cluster cannot have more than two consonants in which the second can be either /l/ or /ɾ/. Also, the first sound of the cluster must be an obstruent – plosive or a a labiodental fricative. The cluster, /dl/ is nonexistent in Portuguese. However, /tl/ is very rare, occurring in the words atlas “atlas,” atleta “athlete” and their derivatives, among few others. Another not very common onset cluster is /dr/. The diagram below summarizes these restrictions.
Focus on Nasality in Portuguese Phonology.
Nasality is one of the most controversial aspect of Portuguese phonology. I chose to focus on this aspect because of this. As mentioned earlier on, there are diverse perspectives and schools of thoughts on the Nasality of Portuguese sounds (especially vowels which is going to be the main focus of this segment). According to Kelm, there are two main distinctive proposals in the categorization of Portuguese nasal vowels - the first is that “nasal vowels have an underlying form of an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant, or archiphoneme” an example is /N/ in the example of vento „wind‟ vento (Mattoso-Câmara 1972; Morais Barbosa 1965). The second proposal is that nasal vowels are independent phonemes from oral vowels.
Distinctively, Portuguese has five nasal vowels - / ɪ̃, ẽ, ɐ̃, õ, ũ/. They all (when they occur in a stressed position) have minimal pairs. Below are some examples: as presented by Guimarães and Nevins:
[ɪ̃] : [ẽ] [sɪ̃] ‘yes’ : [sẽ] ‘without’
[ɪ̃] : [ã] [fɪ̃] ‘end’ : [fã] ‘fan’
[ɪ̃] : [õ] [ku.ˈpi)] ‘termite’ : [ku.ˈpõ] ‘cupon’
[ɪ̃] : [ũ] [Hɪ̃] ‘kidney’ : [Hũ] ‘rum’
[ẽ] : [ã] [sẽ] ‘without’ : [ã] ‘sane(FEM)’
[ẽ] : [õ] [bẽ] ‘well’ : [bõ] ‘good’
[ẽ] : [ũ] [ẽ] ‘in’ : [ũ] ‘one’
[ã] : [õ] [ã] ‘sane(FEM)’ : [sõ] ‘sound’
[ã] : [ũ] [Hã] ‘frog’ : [Hũ] ‘rum’
[õ] : [ũ] [bõ] ‘good’ : [bũ] ‘boom’
Below are some nasal vowel sound files used in actual words spoken by a Brazilian. The sound data were gotten from word list 1 of the UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive:
One thing that is worthy of note about nasality in Portuguese vowel sounds is that at the phonetic level, a nasal vowel may be either allophonic or phonemic at the phonological level. That is, a word that contain a nasalized vowel can form a minimal pair with a word with an oral vowel. E.g., [fɐ̃] which means ‘fan’, and musical notation, F, [fɐ]. [ɐ̃] is this case, is regarded as phonemic; it does not matter whether it is a result of the process of nasalization or whether it is an underlying phoneme. (Guimarães and Nevins n.p.)
However, allophonic nasals never contrast with oral vowels as the environment in which they appear is what determines their nasality. For example, the nasality on the vowel in the word fame [fɐ̃.mɐ] and the word fan [fɐ̃] both involve the process of nasalization. The only difference which distinguishes these two is that in the word [fɐ̃.mɐ], the nasal consonant spreading its nasality to the vowel is the onset of the syllable following it; meanwhile, in [fɐ̃], the nasal consonant is the coda of the same syllable. Therefore, in the nasal vowels of words like [fɐ̃.mɐ], the possibility of a minimal pair is nonexistent. According to Mateus and d’Andrade, “surface contrastive nasal vowels have at least three different phonetic realizations: [ˈvẽndɐ], [ˈvẽȷd̃ ɐ], [vẽdɐ] for venda “sale.” All of which are present in Brazilian Portuguese but not in European Portuguese.Works Cited
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