Intonational aspects of interrogative utterances in potiguar speech

Abstract

Intonation is associated with the vibration of the vocal folds and is considered the main prosodic element of speech (Lucente, 2008). This work aims to describe the intonation of total interrogative utterances produced by potiguar speakers, observing the fundamental frequency curve (F0). To achieve this, total interrogative utterances were collected through semi-spontaneous interviews in three cities in the western part of the state of Rio Grande do Norte. For analysis, we used the Praat software, which provides graphs and values related to the prosodic aspects, and also the DaTo system, which makes it possible to segment the utterance into smaller units, in addition to marking the variation of the F0 curve on the utterance. The variation of this curve is marked by the labels H and L, initially proposed by PierreHumbert (1980), which are used to mark high tones (high) and low tones (low), respectively, throughout the production. The results obtained identified that the intonation nucleus presents two configurations: the first one has curves ending in an ascending movement aligned both to the stressed (LH) and post-tonic syllables (>LH) and the second, ending with ascending-descending curves (LHL ). These results dialogue with patterns previously proposed by Moraes (2008), Silva (2011), Silva and Cunha (2012), Lira (2009) and Nunes (2011/2015), for different regions of Brazil, but also bring important characteristics to the talk about the region.