Prosody in Brazilian Portuguese syntactically ambiguous sentences: duration cues

Abstract

Taking into account syntactically ambiguous sentences related to local or to non-local readings, this paper analyses the duration effects spans as clues to prosodic mapping in Brazilian Portuguese sentences. The discussion is about whether BP speakers differentiate the readings by making a syllable longer, according to the prosodic domain of the intended meaning. This way, this paper shows a comparative study on the production of 30 BP speakers of 9 NP1-V-NP2-Attribute sentences, whereas one interpretation guides to a phonological phrase boundary between NP2 and the Attribute, while the other interpretation does not. The prosodic theory of Nespor and Vogel (1986) was chosen to discuss about the topic. . The results have not shown a relevant statistical difference in lengthening when considering only the readings, although they have indicated a strong correlation between the interpretation and the speaker; also, in all meaningful cases there were longer durations when the attribute was related to NP1, that is, where there is a phonological phrase boundary inserted between NP2 and the Attribute.