RCAAP Repository

In this paper, we present an analysis of the recurrence of the epenthetic vowel found in word-medial clusters both in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) (e.g. [I] in mag[I]ma) and in English learnt by Brazilians (e.g. [I] in mag[I]net). Based on the statement by Collischonn (2002) that the frequency of epenthesis found after BP prefixes such as sub- seems to be higher than the frequency of epenthesis found in medial-word clusters of nonprefixed words, we investigated the role of prefixes in the production of epenthetic vowels in BP and in English. According to the results we obtained from prefix transparency tests and statistical analyses, we conclude that prefixes play an important role in vowel epenthesis in BP and that epenthesis in English seems to be a result of language transfer from the learner’s L1 to the learner’s interlanguage.

In this paper, the analysis focus will be the cases of consonants epenthesis which appear systematically in the productions of the child under study. This phenomenon, which will be analyzed based on the Optimality Theory, can also be observed in the Dutch system confirming that the developmental stages in children’s grammars ought to mimic the diversity seen in the language typology (McCARTHY, 2002).

This paper aims to verify, in the phonological acquisition of English (L2), the implications of a variable phenomenon of an L1 dialect (Coda Condition Weakening (BISOL, 1999)), as well as the effects of different L1 dialects on the L2 system. We have framed the initial hypothesis that the variable production of obstruents in coda in Portuguese would act as a facilitator in the acquisition of English words. The study was based on L1 and L2 data obtained from subjects from the Southern part of Rio Grande do Sul and from Paraiba, which constitute different Brazilian Portuguese dialects. The data were organized in four independent variables (dialect, type of consonant, stress and sex) and, then, and statistically analyzed, using Goldvarb X (SANKOFF, TAGLIAMONTE and SMITH, 2005). The results revealed significant differences between the number of epenthesis in L1 found in Rio Grande do Sul and in Paraiba. As far as L2 is concerned, not many tokens of epenthesis have been found, which seems to attest that, at least in the acquisition of the target language syllable patterns, those learners already exhibit an interlanguage grammar fairly different from the one found in L1.

This paper aims to analyse cross-linguistically the vowel reduction and stress in Western Cheremis (Itkonen 1955, apud Hayes 1995) applying the proposal of the Multidimensional Metrical Plane (Magalhães, 2004, 2008). This approach follows the principles of metrical phonology (Lib erman and Prince, 1977; Halle and Vergnaud, 1987; Hayes 1995) and Optimality Theory (McCarthy and Prince, 1993), and was initially tested on Brazilian Portuguese data. It will be shown that in Western Cheremis, which reduces all non-full vowels, it is not necessary to call for any constraint like NonFinality (extrametricality) to capture the stress and vowel reduction facts.

This study is about one of the shandi fenomena, named degemination, in Italian. Degemination is the fusion of the first vowel, in a sequency of two vowels of same quality VV, in which the first vowel is at the end of a word and the second one occupies the begining of the following word. This study aims to prove that the blocking of degemination in Italian is the stress of the phonological sentence, when it is placed on the second vowel of the sequence, like it is in Brasilian Portuguese. Based on the framework of the Prosodic Theory (Nespor and Vogel, 1986), on the Ritmic Phonology (Nespor, 1993) and on the external shandi studies for the Brasilian Portuguese (Bisol, 1996a, 1996b, 2003) we have verified that the real block to the rule aplication in Italian is the stress of the phonological sentence.

In this paper, we analyze the mapping of tautosyllabic consonantal clusters in Portuguese in light of the Optimality Theory. It is observed that consonantal clusters in the same syllable are well-formed when the sonority distance between the consonants is +3, for instance, in the sequences pr and bl in words like prato (‘dish’) and blusa (‘blouse’). In clusters with a sonority distance lesser than +3, such as sp (sport) and pt (ptose, ‘ptosis’), there is a vowel before the sibilant or between the consonants, [i]sport e p[i]tose. To account for these facts it is proposed a constraint hierarchy in order to regulate the sonority distance between segments within a complex onset: *ONS DIST. It is also proposed a constraint that controls the sonority distance between segments in adjacent syllables: DIST -x. We argue that the interaction among these constraints and faithfulness constraints – OUTPUT-CONTIGUITY (no internal epenthesis), DEP (no epenthesis) e MAX (no deletion) – is responsible for the faithful mapping of the consonantal clusters and for the occurrence of vocalic epenthesis.

In Brazilian Portuguese (BP), the only consonants that can be licensed as codas are the liquids /l, r/, the nasal /N/, the fricative /s/ and, for some, the glides. Because the coda occupies the weakest position in the syllable structure (SELKIRK, 1982), it is common for this constituent to undergo a high degree of sociolinguistic variation, both word-internally and word-finally (e.g., QUEDNAU, 1993; TASCA, 1999; HORA, 2003, 2006; VOTRE, 1978; CALLOU, LEITE, MORAES, 1994; BRESCANCINI, 1996; RIBEIRO, 2006). Our goal in this study is to compare the behavior of the coronal liquids and fricatives in coda position, as spoken in the paraibano dialect (Hora , 2003; Ribeiro , 2006). The results observed confirm the existence of a differential behavior between post-vocalic consonants in word-internal and word-final positions. Our analysis is grounded on the proposals by Harris and Gussmann (1998) and Ewen and Hulst (2001). An investigation of the behavior of word-final consonants in the paraibano dialect leads us to two possible analyses: one in which codas are subject to deletion to obey a CV syllable preference, and one in which word-final consonants are treated as onsets of phonetically unfilled nuclei.

Analysis of the palatalization of dental stops in a dialect of Brazilian Portuguese in the OT (Optimality Theory, by PRINCE and SMOLENSKY, 1993/2004) framework. Implicational generalizations are used to construct a factorial typology with t-order (ANTTILA e ANDRUS, 2006) and five patterns of palatalization. The palatalization in Antônio Prado (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) follows two of these patterns. Palatalized candidates are selected by a set of markedness constraints related to the contexts of palatalization considered in the implicational generalizations. Two stochastic rankings (BOERSMA e HAYES, 1999) of these and faithfulness constraints explain the variation in the community under study.

This paper discusses some issues related to phonological representations and also issues related to spoken and written language. It begins by discussing the notion of phoneme in phonology. This is followed by a discussion of the relationship between oral and spoken language, observing that speech interferes in writing and writing interferes in speech in a symbiotic relationship. Results from Greco (2009) are presented offering evidence from Brazilian Portuguese to the relationship between writing and speech. It is suggested that to express such a relationship between writing and speech it is necessary to suggest multiple representations for speech. Such representations are managed by social, structural and pragmatic aspects. Discreet units, such as the phoneme play an important descriptive role, but they do not express linguistic knowledge. Finally, some pathways for future research are indicated.

In this paper, we discuss the formalization of markedness constraints in Optimality Theory (OT), with an emphasis on the formalization of manner-specific constraints, proposed by De Lacy (2002, 2006). In order to achieve this goal, we focus on the consonantal gaps found in the inventories of three distinct systems: Manchu, Portuguese and Fe?fe? bamileke. As their formalization allows for the association between the harmonic scales of place and manner of articulation with voicing, manner-specific constraints have not only proved an adequate solution in the analysis of phonological gaps, but they also constitute a robust constraint formalization schema in OT.

The present work aims at to analyze the Carlos de Oliveira’s poetry, neo-realist portuguese writer, standing out, over all, the presence of the reality and its conscience of the poetical accomplishment as artsian work. As neo-realist poet, first a reflection on the historical period, its characteristics and implications is presented. To follow, a presentation of poetical of Carlos de Oliveira is made, a poet and novelist that has left of the reality to compose its workmanships. Through the analysis of some poems of Poetical Work, an anthology chosen and rewritten by himself, it can be perceived clearly how reality and the conscience of poetical working appears and has relevance in its workmanship.

No summary/description provided

Hypertext may represent a brave new future for textuality. On the other hand hypertext appears to be limited by its information processing origins. This limitation makes questionable some common postmodern claims about hypertext. In order to seize the cultural high ground its proponents often caricature previous practices of print literature, while the processes of reading are discounted and the mechanism of hypertext is promoted over its content. Hypertext fictions tend to disable the constructive and anticipatory processes of literary readers and reduce narrative to information. Confusions over what hypertext is good for suggest that its moment may already have passed.

The emphasis on linear sequences of beginning, middle and end in print narratives motivates the reader to recover, in his reading practice, a single, coherent and totalizing narrative governed by relations of cause and effect, thus stressing continuities and ignoring or minimizing the significance of discontinuities. In hypertextual narratives, on the other hand, alternative and sometimes conflicting narrative sequences are privileged. Experiments conducted with students (requiring student groups to compose a narrative from a short story fragmented in forty random pieces, without being allowed to read the original story; assigning them the task of comparing Borges’s “The Garden of forking paths” with Stuart Moulthrop’s electronic translation of the same story) suggest that hypertextual narratives tend to open the way to the reading practice of an “outside oriented” reader, predisposed to develop new reading habits, as opposed to the “inside oriented” reader who tends to remain dependent on reading practices defined by the constraints of print narratives.

Digital technologies question the way of thinking the traditional book and originate new spaces of writing and reading, and new types of text. The theory of hypertext has been conceptualising these changes. We will try to demonstrate that this has different matrices, via an analysis of the work of Theodor H. Nelson and Douglas Engelbart and, based on these, of the opposition of “association” and “connection” and of hypertext as an authorial and literary tool and hypertext as a system of information retrieval, with, further, a reflection upon the situation of standalone hypertextual systems confronted by the emergence of the World Wide Web. Lastly, Luciano Floridi’s concept of infosphere – understood as a semantic space constituted by the totality of documents, agents and their operations – allows us to characterise a new ecology where homo informaticus belongs is an amphibian species, living simultaneously in the biosphere and the infosphere, implying the development of new reading skills through hybrid and multimodal semiotic fields.

The growing hegemony of the mode of ditigal production of literary texts to be made available in the internet calls for critical discussion on the possible changes that take place when literary texts are translated in hypertextual format. This essay is devoted to a critical study of the problem in the context of the double meaning of technology as, on the one hand, a tool for the production of objects and, on the other, as an environment in which not only objects but also subjectivities are molded and changed in terms of habits and behavior. If the concept of technology as an environment capable of redefining subjectivities is taken seriously, then it is possible that literature texts translated or produced in hypertextual format will be affect by profound changes when compared to literary production in print.

Initially, this text concerns the nexus between literature and hypertext as processes of reading and writing in the works of Italo Calvino. According to Pierre Levy, hypertext can be understood as a metaphor for the production of meaning. Following Levy, this paper applies hypertext as a conceptual and methodological operator to Calvino’s work. Afterwards, we analyse his participation in the OULIPO, in addition to the relationship between hypertext and combinatorics.

This work is about the use of internet in literature teaching, in high school or in the college. For this, we present the report of two experiences done with blogs in three groups of Letters students at the Universidade Estadual de Maringá, in the “Brazilian Literature: Poetry” and “Brazilian Literature Special Topics” courses. After the report of these experiences, pointing the assessment criteria, the methology and the results, we started to consider the use of chats in the literary creation on-line workshops. The results of the educational experience with the blogs are very satisfactory, because – in general – its use is shown as a very positive strategy to make students write more and write different types of texts, be interactive with the contents, with the other students and with the teacher, leaving the passive behavior in the teacher-student relationship to begin to experience knowledge as something dynamic, observing writing as a process. To conclude, we present tips of sites and cultural and literary magazines on-line that can be useful for both students and literature teachers.

In view of the possibility of mobilizing students for the productive use of Internet, we’re developing a methodology in which the understanding of intertextual relations and the concept of hipertext are presented as a wake for new conceptual and interpretive forms, based on constructionist theories and the reading strategies of “parenting and progeny”, we defend the idea that understanding can be more effectivesinse the establishment of connections with their own universe references.

No summary/description provided