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Chapter 11Acquiring Brazilian Portuguese

Daniela Evaristo dos Santos Galea

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Introduction

• This chapter provides an overview of phonological development in Brazilian Portuguese

• Data from children in São Paulo, a city in the southeastern region of the country

• Acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese– Syllable and phoneme inventory of the language– Child data

• Age of acquisition of individual phonemes• Age of elimination of phonological processes

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Portuguese Speakers Around the World

• Portuguese is a Romance language• Spoken in Europe

– Portugal• South America

– Brazil• Africa

– Mozambique– Angola– Cape Verde– Guiné-Bissau– São Tomé e Príncipe

• Asia– Macau– East Timor– Goa

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The Phonology of Brazilian Portuguese

• Phoneme inventory (Bechara, 1998) – Consonants

• Occlusives– Stops /p, b, t, d, k, g/– Nasals /m, n, ŋ/

• Constrictives– Fricatives /f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ/– Laterals /l, ʎ /– Flap /ɾ/ – Trill /ʁ/ Considered a liquid by some authors, or a voiceless velar fricative /x/ by

others

– Vowels• Oral /a, e, i o, u, ε, ɔ/• Nasal /ã, e, ɪ o, u/ ,

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• Syllable and word shapes– V core– Optional C or CC onset

• If singleton C, 16 of the consonants can appear • If CC, the first C must be /p, b, t, d, k, ɡ, v, f/ and the second C a

liquid– Not all of combinations are possible, e.g.,* /vr/ in word-initial position,

*/dl, vl/ in any position

– Optional C coda • If coda, must be /S, R, l, n/ (note: capital letters denote

archiphonemes)• Predominant syllable shape is CV

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Typical Phonological Development

• Understanding the acquisition patterns of the sounds, syllable shapes, and word shapes of a language informs clinical decisions in diagnosis and treatment

• Research on typical development of Brazilian Portuguese has focused on children in the South and Southeast regions of Brazil

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The Acquisition of Individual Speech Sounds

• Nasals– /m, n/ 1;6 and 1;8– /ŋ/slightly later

• Fricatives– /f, v, s, z/ before age 2;0– /ʃ, ʒ/ around 2;10 and 2;6

• Laterals– /l/ between 2;0 and 3;0 depending on sample and word position– Palatal lateral /ʎ/ 4;0 to 4;1

• Flap /ɾ/ 4;2 to 4;3• Clusters

– /r/ clusters 3;7 to 5;0– /l/ clusters 4;7 to 5;0

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• Cross-sectional study of children age 2;0 to 3;0 (Galea, 2008)

• Each phoneme was analyzed based on % of children who produced the phoneme accurately– 75% up to 100%: “acquired”– 50% up to 75%: “customary production?– 26% up to 50%: “in acquisition”– 0% up to 15%: “not acquired”

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Table 11.1 Phonemes and clusters in two groups (2:1 to 2:6 years and 2:7 to 3:0 years) as elicited in a picture naming task

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Phonological Processes• Yavas (1988)

– Southern Brazil• 4;6

– Cluster reduction– Devoicing

• 3;6– Unstressed syllable deletion – Final fricative deletion– Gliding – Liquid substitution

• 3;0– Intervocalic liquid deletion– Backing

• 2;6– Liquid onset deletion

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Table 11.2 Description of phonological processes in children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese

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Table 11.2 (cont’d)

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Table 11.2 (cont’d)

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Connections

• Chapter 6: English• Chapter 9: Common trends in many languages• Chapter 10: French• Chapter 12: Korean

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Concluding Remarks

• When drawing conclusions about the acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese phonology, dialectal variations should be taken into account

• In general, children master the sound system by age 7

• The last phonological processes to be eliminated involve complex syllable shapes (e.g., CCV and CVC) and the presence of liquids