O apagamento da oclusiva alveolar /d/ de gerúndio no falar de Fortaleza-CE

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the production and deletion of /d/ in gerund verbs in the speech of Fortaleza-CE, a phenomenon that can occur with or without the articulation of the phoneme /d/. The investigation is based on the Theory of Linguistic Variation and Change (Labov, 1994, 2001, 2003, 2008; Weinreich; Labov; Herzog, 2006), seeking to understand the influence of linguistic and extralinguistic factors on the production and deletion of /d/ in gerund verbs. The data collected were extracted from participants from the aforementioned city who were born and have resided there for at least 10 uninterrupted years, in cases where they had moved away from the region, that is, lived in another city for some period. The sample was stratified according to age group (I: 18-28 years old, II: 29-39) and educational level (completed secondary and higher education). In addition, linguistic factors extracted from verbs in the gerund form whose thematic vowels belong to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd conjugations were considered. The data were extracted from a corpus of image descriptions and readings of carrier phrases, and analyzed through auditory perception (listening) by four judges. This perceptual analysis observed when the /d/ of the gerund was pronounced or not, or when the judge had doubts. Subsequently, possible effects of the predictor variables on the response variable, the deletion of the /d/ of the gerund, were verified. Then, possible effects of the predictor variables on the response variable, the deletion of the /d/ in gerunds, were verified. The results indicate that verbs of the 1st conjugation are those that most favor the phenomenon, with a percentage of 22.7%, exceeding the rates recorded for the 2nd (17.1%) and 3rd conjugations (15.5%). Regarding extralinguistic variables, synchronic stability was observed between generational groups. The contiguity between the investigated age ranges (18-28 years old, Range I and 29- 39 years old, Range II) revealed very similar deletion rates (19.1% in Range I and 17.9% in Range II), suggesting that speakers share similar social pressures. This near-homogeneity characterizes the phenomenon not as an ongoing change, but as a consolidated linguistic marker in the speech community. Regarding education, it was confirmed that speakers with secondary education tend to delete more (19.3%) than those with higher education (17.8%), highlighting the role of formal instruction as an inhibiting factor. It is concluded that deletion in Fortaleza is conditioned by an intersection of phonetic-functional factors and normative pressures.