SYNCOPE OF NON-FINAL POSTONIC VOWELS IN THE INLAND OF PARANÁ: AN AUTOSEGMENTAL AND VARIATIONAL ANALYSIS FROM ALIB DATA

ABSTRACT In this paper, we aim to describe and analyze the phenomenon of syncope of postonic vowel in non-final context, based on data collected in interviews conducted by the project Linguistic Atlas of Brazil (ALiB), in sixteen points of inquiry located in the inland of Paraná, with a total of 64 informants. Thereby, we evaluate the frequency and possible linguistic and extralinguistic factors that can condition syncope/maintenance of non-final postonic vowel of proparoxytones in eleven lexical items: lâmpada (‘light bulb’), elétrico (‘electric’), fósforo (‘match’), pólvora (‘gunpower’), abóbora (‘pumpkin’), árvore (‘tree’), sábado (‘Saturday’), número (‘number’), fígado (‘liver’), vômito (‘vomit’) and hóspede (‘guest’) that are part of the Phonetic-Phonological Questionnaire (QFF in Portuguese) of the ALiB Questionnaire (ALiB PROJECT NATIONAL COMMITTEE, 2001). The investigation rests on the perspective of Pluridimensional Dialectology (THUN, 1998) and in light of the autosegmental phonological model for the syllable, in analysis of the syllabic pattern of Brazilian Portuguese (COLLISCHONN, 1996; BISOL, 1999). We found out that the phonological context of postonic vowels and adjacent segments may interfere in the conditioning of syncope, while the extralinguistic variables are not productive for this process in our corpus .