A realização de At, d/ diante de il no interior do Rio Grande do Sul - dados do Projeto Atlas Linguístico do Brasil

Abstract

This study investigates the realization of the plosive consonants /t, d/ before the high vowel [i], whether phonological – as in mentira and liquidificador – or derived, in which cases the vowel [i] results from the raising of the mid vowel /e/ in unstressed position – as in prateleira, desvio, tomate, and tarde. These consonants can be articulated as dentoalveolar ([t, d]) or palatalized ([tʃ, dʒ]). The data were taken from surveys made available by the Linguistic Atlas of Brazil Project (ALiB) – based on listening to phonetic-phonological (QFF), semantic-lexical (QSL), morphosyntactic (QMS) questionnaires and other parts of the recording, with the exception of the reading text – applied in 16 cities in Rio Grande do Sul – Três Passos, Erechim, Passo Fundo, Vacaria, Ijuí, São Borja, Flores da Cunha, Santa Cruz do Sul, Santa Maria, Osório, Uruguaiana, Caçapava do Sul, Santana do Livramento, Bagé, São José do Norte, and Chuí. Four informants were interviewed in each location, distributed by gender and two age groups (18 to 30 years and 50 to 65 years), all with elementary school education. After being transcribed phonetically, the data were coded and submitted to the GoldVarb X program (Sankoff; Tagliamonte; Smith, 2005) for statistical processing. Based on the control of linguistic and extralinguistic variables, quantitative and qualitative data analysis was performed, based on the theoretical and methodological assumptions of Dialectology (Ferreira; Cardoso, 1994; Cardoso, 2002; Cardoso, 2010; Thun, 2017) and Variationist Sociolinguistics (Weinreich; Labov; Herzog, 2006 [1968]; Labov, 2008 [1972]). In total, 9,188 instances of /t, d/ before [i] were found. Of this total, 8,303 (90%) were palatal realizations, while 885 (10%) were dentoalveolar realizations. The variables selected as statistically relevant revealed that the phenomenon is conditioned by internal, social, and stylistic factors, in addition to showing a strong correlation with diatopia.