PERCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF EXCLAMATIVE AND INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES SPEAK BY SPEAKERS OF VITORIA DA CONQUISTA/BA

Abstract

This paper is a perceptive study of interrogative and exclamative sentences of speakers from Vitoria da Conquista, Bahia. The aim of the research was to investigate just how much of variation of the F0 is needed to ensure the perceptibility of a particular type of sentence. The analyses were performed in sentences with and without pronoun, since we also aimed to know to what extent the syntactic structure favors or not the melodic perception. The data were subjected to perception test, Kruskall-Wallis ANOVA and quadratic polynomial regression. For the perception test, we changed in three distinct ways the F0 of the tonic component, one that has the salient stressed syllable of the utterance. Data were handled through the software PRAAT in which the F0 was modified to obtain ascending and descending values of 25, 50 and 75 compared to the average value of the original signal in the tonic component. The results showed that the F0 plays an important role in developing the perception of the melodic contours. Considering the basic principles of the Quantum Theory (Stevens 1972, 1989), we can say that specific frequency bands favor the perception of the intonation types, thus constituting quantum regions responsible for defining the melodic patterns which contrast interrogative and exclamative sentences. When the acoustic signal does not present specific quantum region for the contrast among interrogative and exclamative sentences, the process of perception of these types of sentences is compromised.