ON THE COGNITIVE ORGANIZATION OF THE PHONOLOGICAL VARIATION

Abstract

In this article, we address the issue of the cognitive organization of linguistic variation based on the assumptions of Usage-Based Models using data from the controlled production of word-final coda (r) variants, in nouns and verbs, by speakers of the Carioca Portuguese. The hypothesis is that the detailed representation of the phonetic forms of items with final coda (r) contains all the phonetic possibilities of the coda in the Carioca variety ([χ, ɣ, h, ɦ] and others from experience with different varieties of BP), in addition to the absence of the coda, and that the exemplar representation is organized around a dominant variant. Data were obtained through the controlled production of infinitives and nouns, using the priming technique, defined as a cognitive phenomenon detected in linguistic and non-linguistic behavior, which concerns the effect that a prior exposure to a given stimulus (prime) can generate on the response to a subsequent stimulus (target). Stimuli were created from 16 lexical items selected for each grammatical class, inserted into a carrier sentence, followed by a question to elicit the production of the target item, already produced in the stimulus with one of two variants (prime), presence or absence of a coda. The experiment was applied to 34 participants: 20 undergraduates and 14 non-university students. No effect of the stimulus variant, with or without a coda, was observed on the production of lexical items in either grammatical category. The results indicate that the absence of the coda is the dominant variant for infinitives, regardless of the participants' education level. Regarding stimuli with nouns, coda production prevailed only in the university group, which was taken as an indication that, in this case, the dominant variant may differ depending on the speakers' social characteristics.