The monophthongization /ei/ in Mozambican Portuguese

• Autor(a) principal: Gomes, Danielle Kely
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Working Papers em Lingüística (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/workingpapers/article/view/92314
• topic: Dipthongs; Variation; Mozambican Portuguese; Restrictions; Contact between languages; Ditongos; Variação; Português em Moçambique; Restrições; Contato entre línguas

This paper describes the process of monophthongization of the diphthong /ei/ in the urban variety of Mozambican Portuguese, based on a survey of data from 18 interviews - stratified according to the variables sex, age group and level of education -, collected in Maputo (Vieira; Pissurno, 2016). The research hypothesizes that the implementation of the variant [e] in the word-internal position is incipient in the community. The results confirm the hypothesis: the input for the application of the monophthongization rule is relatively low, and the implementation of [e] correlates with the segments preceding and following the diphthong, the gender and age group of the informants, and the contact between Portuguese and the indigenous languages of Mozambique. This research contributes to the description of a phonetic-phonological process in a variety of Portuguese still in formation and of the effects of language contact on the behavior of the variable under analysis.