Raise Of Anterior Middle Pretonic In Rural Speech Of Paraná: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This is a preliminary study of the raise of the anterior middle pretonic vowel in the rural speech of Paraná. This analysis adopts the theoretical and methodological principles of sociolinguistics; however, in addition to linguistic and social factors traditionally taken into account by the variationists, it also considers this phenomenon in its diatopic scope. At the linguistic level, we describe the phonetic and phonological factors that favor the use of the raised form. At the level of social factors, it is the variable age which presents results with characteristics of change in progress. And under diatopic scope, we seek to define the geographical areas of predominantly middle vowel or high vowel use.