In this dissertation, there have been described and analyzed the r in the final and medial syllabic
coda position, in the town of Porto Nacional-Tocantins, which is located in the central region
of the state, at 62 kilometers from the city capital, Palmas. We started from the hypothesis that,
when speaking, the inhabitants of Porto Nacional use two or more variants of the r. That
phonetic-phonological variation of the rhotics is constrained to linguistic, social and cognitive
factors, as the individuals may have multiple linguistic representations, being the linguistic
variation saved in the memory and constantly updated by the speaker’s experience. As
theorectical framework for the aforesaid research, there have been chosen the Multi-
representational Model Theory, since those models consider the quantitative aspects of the
language, thereby being probabilistic. Thereby, we drew upon the Usage-based (BYBEE, 2001,
2016) and the Exemplar Theory (JOHNSON; MULLENIX, 1997; PIERREHUMBERT, 2001),
besides the methodology of the Quantitative Sociolinguistics (LABOV, 1972 [2008]). On the
data collection phase, we described and analyzed the phonetic-phonological behavior of the
rhotics on the speech of 12 informants, stratified according to: age range from 20 (twenty) to
35 (thirty-five) years old; from 36 (thirty-six) to 55 (fifty-five) years old; and over 55 (fifty-
five) years old; with educational level pertaining to High School and University; of both
genders, male and female. To accomplish the linguistics analysis, there were considered the
restraints of the phonological context: tone, number of syllables and the following rhotic
contexts: in absolute final coda position, followed by stop voiced and voiceless consonante for
final syllabic coda. For medial syllabic coda, we analyzed the following contexts: followed by
voiced and voiceless consonants. To develop the data quantitative analyses, we used the
GOLDVARBX computer program, partitioned the data through the PRAAT program to verify
the glotal pulses and, aiming to confirm if the diferences between realizations and weakenings
were significant, a Significance Statistics Test was carried out. The final considerations are
done starting from 576 events of r in syllabic coda, being 432 in final coda position and 144 in
medial coda position The results of this research point out that the “portuenses” speakers
pronounce the voiceless fricatives more often, highlighting the glotal fricative variant, opposed
to the retroflex which presented only one event.
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