The “Manezinho” dialectal identity and its intonational features

Abstract “Manezinho” is a non-urban dialect of Brazilian Portuguese spoken in the Island of Santa Catarina, which has certain defining segmental and suprasegmental properties. This paper investigates one of these suprasegmental properties characterized by the use of a particular declarative contour, which shows a sharp tonal rise up to the final stressed syllable, followed by a drop from the high tone to the lower part of the speaker's range. We used data from the VARSUL Project as research corpus, analyzing these data with the methodology of experimental phonetics. By means of two perception tests, we show that the contour in question, in autosegmental-metrical notation (LH) ¡HL%, is recognized by a very significant number of listeners as being effectively “Manezinho”. The implications for sociophonetics are the quantitative phonetic details of the final tonal fall, which give this contour its uniqueness over other dialects.