Brazilian Portuguese nasal vowels and their acoustic moments: Reflections on the phonological status

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the vocalic nasality of Brazilian Portuguese from the observation of the acoustic moments that constitute the BP nasal vowels. Five hundred ninety-eight instances were analyzed from five Florianopolitano speakers. Data collection included a test for eliciting trisyllable pseudowords in a carrier phrase in which the nasal and oral vowels were presented in unstressed and stressed syllables and followed by plosive and fricative consonants. Data analysis relied on the acoustic signal from oral and nasal microphones. Results showed that the acoustic moments that constitute the nasal vowels seem to support the monophonemic phonological status for the nasal vowels in Brazilian Portuguese.

Keywords

• Vowel nasality
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Acoustic moments
• Phonological status