On syllable structure and phonological variation: The case of i-epenthesis by Brazilian Portuguese learners of English

Abstract

Our study employs nonword-learning tasks to examine i-epenthesis in the speech output of 53 Brazilian Portuguese learners of English. One aim is to investigate conflicting views on the syllabification of consonants in various word-medial and final contexts, where they can be parsed as either codas or onsets of empty nuclei. Another aim is to test a proposal (Authors, 2017) concerning the source of L2 phonological variation: we suggest that L2 variation is lexical rather than derivational, stemming from individual items having dual underlying representations which compete for selection at the moment of speaking. The results of a multivariate statistical analysis indicate: i) a hierarchy of difficulty in the acquisition of the stops /p k/ in different lexical locations; and ii) simultaneous development of dual representations for single lexical items.

RAMBLE: robust acoustic modeling for Brazilian learners of English

“…The third most frequent of these error was consonant substitution which occurred in only 9.03% of the errors. This can be interpreted to show that the frequency of this error is not negligible and as mentioned earlier is well documented as an extremely difficult phenomenon for Brazilian L2 learners of English (KLUGE et al, 2007;MARTINS et al, 2012;JOHN;CARDOSO, 2017).…”

“…Epenthesis was chosen as the error to focus on since it is the error which most impedes communication for BP natives when speaking in English and because it is a particularly difficult construction for Brazilians (KLUGE et al, 2007;MARTINS et al, 2012;JOHN;CARDOSO, 2017). It is also interesting, because like most errors, it is rare that such epenthesis actually occurs, but when it does, the effect is quite obvious and undesirable.…”

“…Extrinsically, a specific error, epenthesis, will be analyzed to show how the model performs in a hypothetical task like error diagnosis. This task was chosen because it is a particularly difficult construction for Brazilians (KLUGE et al, 2007;MARTINS et al, 2012;JOHN;CARDOSO, 2017) and an error which greatly impedes communication.…”

L2 speech learning of European Portuguese /l/ and /ɾ/ by L1-Mandarin learners: Experimental evidence and theoretical modelling

“…43 An alternative interpretation for the fuzzy L2 lexical representation is the co-existence of multiple underlying forms connected to the single lexical entry (John & Cardoso, 2017). Testing the underspecified account and the multi-representational account goes beyond the scope of this study, but they do not conflict with respect to the fact that a fuzzy lexical representation does not yield a mismatch between the underlying form and the perceived surface form, thus not triggering category learning.…”

Vowel insertion after coda plosives in the dialect of Paraíba (PB): reflections on the establishment of syllabic and social boundaries

“…CANTONI, 2015;MONARETTO, 2015;COLLISCHONN, 2004), whereas other scholars argue for the variability of epenthesis as a result of phonetic implementation (cf. JOHN;CARDOSO, 2017). Regarding the dialect of interest, a sociolinguistic study focusing on the acquisition of triconsonantal sequences with coronal plosives between heterosyllabic consonants by L2 English learners from the city of Campina Grande in the northeastern state of Paraíba, Brazil, shows interesting results (REIS; LUCENA, 2019).…”