Portuguese Lexical Clusters and CVC Sequences in Speech Perception and Production

Cunha, Conceição (2015): Portuguese Lexical Clusters and CVC Sequences in Speech Perception and Production. In: Phonetica, Vol. 72, No. 2-3: pp. 138-161

Abstract

This paper investigates similarities between lexical consonant clusters and CVC sequences differing in the presence or absence of a lexical vowel in speech perception and production in two Portuguese varieties. The frequent high vowel deletion in the European variety (EP) and the realization of intervening vocalic elements between lexical clusters in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) may minimize the contrast between lexical clusters and CVC sequences in the two Portuguese varieties. In order to test this hypothesis we present a perception experiment with 72 participants and a physiological analysis of 3-dimensional movement data from 5 EP and 4 BP speakers. The perceptual results confirmed a gradual confusion of lexical clusters and CVC sequences in EP, which corresponded roughly to the gradient consonantal overlap found in production.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Form of publication: Publisher's Version
• Faculties: Languages and Literatures > Department 2 > Speech Science
• Subjects: 400 Language > 460 Spanish and Portuguese languages
• ISSN: 0031-8388
• Alliance/National Licence: This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.
• Language: English