title: From Reduction to Apocope: Final Poststressed Vowel Devoicing in Brazilian Portuguese.
abstract: This is a study of final poststressed vowel devoicing following /s/ in Brazilian Portuguese. We contradict the literature describing it as deletion by arguing, first, that the vowel is not deleted, but overlapped and devoiced by the /s/, and, second, that gradient reduction with devoicing may lead to apocope diachronically. The following results support our view: (1) partially devoiced vowels are centralized; (2) centralization is inversely proportional to duration; (3) total devoicing is accompanied by lowering of the /s/ centroid; (4) the /s/ noise seems to be lengthened when the vowel is totally devoiced; (5) aerodynamic tests reveal that lengthened /s/ has a final vowel-like portion, too short to be voiced; (6) lengthened /s/ favors vowel recovery in perceptual tests. This seems to be a likely path from reduction to devoicing to listener-based apocope.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Language Studies, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil.
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Meneses
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Albano
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics / Q000379:methods*; D010699:Phonation / Q000502:physiology*; D010700:Phonetics; D011174:Portugal / Q000208:ethnology; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014705:Verbal Behavior