O estudo dos róticos no Estado do Espírito Santo

Abstract

This research aims to verify the occurrence of rhotic in the State of the Espírito Santo, Brazil. The study was based on the dialectology and on the Labovian sociolinguistics, and collected 128 tokens distributed in 32 locations of Espírito Santo. The r variant was analyzed in the following phonological contexts: a) word-final post-vocalic context; b) word-medial post-vocalic; c) word-initial pre-vocalic and d) intervocalic context. We used the variable rule software Goldvarb 2001 to analyze data, which was spatially represented by means of maps. As result, we observed a high suppression rate in the word-final context (81%). In the others contexts, we observed a predominance of the glottal fricative []. According to several researches on rhotics, we observed a relevant change in the posterization process of r at Espírito Santo until your total suppression in the word-final position. Regarding to spatial distribution of the variants, we detected some variations between regions of Espírito Santo, especially in that ones that received many immigrants. Finally, we highlight the role of the gender variable in our results, which shows that the women are the principal actors in the use of newer variants.