Native Speakers Of European Portuguese Research Articles

Is there hyper-raising in European Portuguese?

Abstract Several languages allow for hyper-raising, a structure in which a DP that is interpreted as the subject of a finite complement clause is spelled-out as the subject of the matrix clause. Hyper-raising challenges certain core concepts of syntactic theory related to movement and locality. Various proposals have been made for analysing these structures, the main difference being whether the final position of the DP results from movement or not. It has often been assumed that European Portuguese, in contrast to Brazilian Portuguese, does not allow hyper-raising, or only allows it in very limited contexts. In this paper, we present empirical data extracted from written corpora and experimental results attesting to the production and acceptance of hyper-raising structures by a number of native speakers of European Portuguese. We contribute to identifying the contexts that favour hyper-raising in this variety and outline a preliminary analysis to explain what leads these speakers to produce and accept hyper-raising, while many others systematically reject it. In our proposal, this difference results from the properties of the embedded functional heads T and C, and the way in which their formal features are checked. Specifically, we propose that those speakers dissociate Case features from person-number features.

Divergência seletiva no estádio final de aquisição de L2: Dados sobre a construção com there em inglês

This study investigates the acquisition of there-constructions (with verbs other than be) in L2 English by native speakers of European Portuguese (EP) and French. Its main purpose is to test two opposing hypotheses on the end-state of L2 acquisition at the interfaces: the Interface Hypothesis (IH) and the L1+input Hypothesis (LIH). The former proposes that internal interfaces are, generally, unproblematic at the end-state of L2 acquisition, whereas external interfaces, like the syntax-discourse interface, are areas of permanent optionality due to processing inefficiencies associated with bilingualism. The latter, in contrast, advocates that structures at external interfaces generate problems at a near-native level iff their properties are different in the L1 and the L2 and they are infrequent in the input. By administering 2 untimed drag and drop tasks, 3 speeded acceptability judgement tasks and 1 syntactic priming task to a total of 80 participants, we tested the types of overt expletives, the types of intransitive verbs and the types of discourse contexts compatible with thereconstructions in advanced and near-native English. The results confirm the IH, but suggest that the LIH is not completely wrong.

Divergência seletiva no estádio final de aquisição de L2: Dados sobre a construção com there em inglês

This study investigates the acquisition of there-constructions (with verbs other than be) in L2 English by native speakers of European Portuguese (EP) and French. Its main purpose is to test two opposing hypotheses on the end-state of L2 acquisition at the interfaces: the Interface Hypothesis (IH) and the L1+input Hypothesis (LIH). The former proposes that internal interfaces are, generally, unproblematic at the end-state of L2 acquisition, whereas external interfaces, like the syntax-discourse interface, are areas of permanent optionality due to processing inefficiencies associated with bilingualism. The latter, in contrast, advocates that structures at external interfaces generate problems at a near-native level iff their properties are different in the L1 and the L2 and they are infrequent in the input. By administering 2 untimed drag and drop tasks, 3 speeded acceptability judgement tasks and 1 syntactic priming task to a total of 80 participants, we tested the types of overt expletives, the types of intransitive verbs and the types of discourse contexts compatible with thereconstructions in advanced and near-native English. The results confirm the IH, but suggest that the LIH is not completely wrong.

Lexico-syntactic interactions in the resolution of relative clause ambiguities in a second language (L2): The role of cognate status and L2 proficiency

Abstract There is extensive evidence showing that bilinguals activate lexical representations in a non-selective way both when words are presented in isolation and in sentence contexts. Recent research has shown the existence of cross-language activation at the syntactic level as well. However, the extent to which the lexical and syntactic levels of representation interact during second language (L2) sentence processing, and how these interactions are modulated by L2 proficiency remain unclear. In this paper, we explore how native speakers of European-Portuguese (L1) who are learning English as an L2 at different levels of proficiency (intermediate vs. advanced) resolve relative clause (RC) syntactic ambiguities in their L2. European Portuguese and English native speakers were used as controls. Participants were asked to perform a sentence completion task, with cognates and noncognates critically embedded in the complex noun phrase (NP) preceding the RC, and which contained its antecedent. Results revealed that L2 learners, like English controls, preferred to attach the RC to the last host of the complex NP, regardless of L2 proficiency. Importantly, the cognate status of the complex NP modulated the results, although, contrary to our expectation, the presence of cognates induced less L1 syntax interference compared to noncognates.

Does phonological overlap of cognate words modulate cognate acquisition and processing in developing and skilled readers?

ABSTRACTVery few studies exist on the role of cross-language similarities in cognate word acquisition. Here we sought to explore, for the first time, the interplay of orthography (O) and phonology (P) during the early stages of cognate word acquisition, looking at children and adults with the same level of foreign language proficiency and by using two variants of the word-association learning paradigm (auditory learning method vs. auditory + written method). Eighty participants (40 children and 40 adults, native speakers of European Portuguese [EP]), learned a set of EP-Catalan cognate words and noncognate words. Among the cognate words, the degree of orthographic and phonological similarity was manipulated. Half of the children and adult participants learned the new words via an L2 auditory and written-L1 word association method, while the other half learned the same words only through an L2 auditory-L1 word association method. Both groups were tested in an auditory recognition task and a go/no-go lexical decision task. Results revealed a disadvantage for children in comparison to adults, which was reduced in the auditory learning method. Furthermore, there was an advantage for cognates relative to noncognates regardless of the age of participants. Importantly, there were modulations in cognate word processing as a function of the degree of O and P overlap that were restricted to children. The findings are discussed in light of the most relevant bilingual models of word recognition.

Aquisição da correferência pronominal catafórica no português europeu por aprendentes chineses

This paper aims to investigate how Chinese learners of European Portuguese as second language acquire backward anaphora in this language, analyzing the interpretation of overt pronoun in left-dislocated temporal adverbial adjunct. Two experiments were administered to test if the syntactic position and the proximity of antecedent are main factors to determine the interpretation by the native speakers of Portuguese and the Chinese learners, as well as if the learners are influenced by their first language. The first test illustrates that in Chinese the native speakers may fluctuate between three possible interpretations in backward anaphora structures, namely the matrix subject, matrix object and the antecedent in context. The second test demonstrates that the native speakers of European Portuguese also fluctuate between the three interpretations, while the Chinese learners do not tend to accept an antecedent in the context. The test also shows that the C1 level learners are more likely to accept the matrix subject as the antecedent of the embedded overt pronoun than the B2 level learners.

O processamento de lexemas com combinação afixal múltipla no português europeu

This work aims to understand the limits to the syntagmatic extension of multiple derivational affixation which deals with affixes that operate in productive word-formation patterns of contemporary European Portuguese (Rio-Torto et al., 2016). The work is theoretically supported on the multiple-route model (Kuperman et al., 2010) and empirically based on the analysis of corpora (Corpus de Referência do Português Contemporâneo and Linguateca) and of experiments (acceptability judgement task and recall task) made with native speakers of European Portuguese. The empirical phenomenon of the multiple affixation under focus is constituted by lexemes containing the suffix series -bil/-al-iz(a)-bil-idade, which is observable in words with low frequency such as comercializabilidade and materializabilidade. Under the perspective of structural constraints (Gaeta, 2015; Rodrigues, 2014; 2015), multiple affixation should be possible as long as the constraints between affixes are obeyed. However, the low frequency of the multiple affixation under analysis arouses the hypothesis that processual conditionings influence the limits of multiple affixation. The acceptability judgement task and the recall task aim to shed light on the psycholinguistic conditions that intervene in the limits of multiple affixation. The study concludes that variables such as the frequency of the affix combination, semantic transparency, affix salience, and expectedness (Bell & Schäffer, 2013; 2016) towards the combination are important for the pattern construction power of the affix combination, that is, for the capacity of the combination to function as a mental pattern that allows the speaker to produce and analyze lexemes. The pattern construction power depends on the experience of the speaker towards the affix combination.

Global Accent in the Portuguese Speech of Heritage Returnees

The present study examined whether heritage speakers (HSs) of European Portuguese (EP) who were born or moved to a German-speaking country before the age of eight years were perceived as native speakers of EP. In particular, this study intended to determine whether a change of linguistic environment, length of residence in a migrant context, length of residence in the country of origin before migration and after remigration, and age at return could predict the degree of (non)native accent in the heritage language. Thirty native Portuguese speakers assessed the global accent of 20 Portuguese-German bilinguals, five Portuguese monolinguals and five highly proficient German speakers of Portuguese as a second language (L2). The group of HSs comprised 17 speakers who returned to Portugal. The results revealed that listeners perceived a strong global foreign accent in the speech of the L2 learners, while the monolingual Portuguese speakers were clearly perceived as being native speakers of EP. The HSs’ ratings were considerably closer to the monolingual average ratings, but they showed more variation, indicating that their accent may bear non-native traces. Further analyses showed that the age at which the HSs emigrated was the only significant predictor, while length of residence in the host country and in Portugal were less predictive.

The Minho Word Pool: Norms for imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 Portuguese words.

Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive research. Because of their complexity, using words requires strict control of their objective (lexical and sublexical) and subjective properties. In this work, we present the Minho Word Pool (MWP), a dataset that provides normative values of imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 (European) Portuguese words-three subjective measures that, in spite of being used extensively in research, have been scarce for Portuguese. Data were collected with 2,357 college students who were native speakers of European Portuguese. The participants rated 100 words drawn randomly from the full set for each of the three subjective indices, using a Web survey procedure (via a URL link). Analyses comparing the MWP ratings with those obtained for the same words from other national and international databases showed that the MWP norms are reliable and valid, thus providing researchers with a useful tool to support research in all neuroscientific areas using verbal stimuli. The MWP norms can be downloaded along with this article or from http://p-pal.di.uminho.pt/about/databases .

Affective auditory stimuli: Adaptation of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-2) for European Portuguese

In this study, we present the normative values of the adaptation of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-2; Bradley & Lang, 2007a) for European Portuguese (EP). The IADS-2 is a standardized database of 167 naturally occurring sounds that is widely used in the study of emotions. The sounds were rated by 300 college students who were native speakers of EP, in the three affective dimensions of valence, arousal, and dominance, by using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). The aims of this adaptation were threefold: (1) to provide researchers with standardized and normatively rated affective sounds to be used with an EP population; (2) to investigate sex and cultural differences in the ratings of affective dimensions of auditory stimuli between EP and the American (Bradley & Lang, 2007a) and Spanish (Fernández-Abascal et al., Psicothema 20:104-113 2008; Redondo, Fraga, Padrón, & Piñeiro, Behavior Research Methods 40:784-790 2008) standardizations; and (3) to promote research on auditory affective processing in Portugal. Our results indicated that the IADS-2 is a valid and useful database of digitized sounds for the study of emotions in a Portuguese context, allowing for comparisons of its results with those of other international studies that have used the same database for stimulus selection. The normative values of the EP adaptation of the IADS-2 database can be downloaded along with the online version of this article.

Lexical and semantic representations in the acquisition of L2 cognate and non‐cognate words: Evidence from two learning methods in children

How bilinguals represent words in two languages and which mechanisms are responsible for second language acquisition are important questions in the bilingual and vocabulary acquisition literature. This study aims to analyse the effect of two learning methods (picture- vs. word-based method) and two types of words (cognates and non-cognates) in early stages of children's L2 acquisition. Forty-eight native speakers of European Portuguese, all sixth graders (mean age = 10.87 years; SD= 0.85), participated in the study. None of them had prior knowledge of Basque (the L2 in this study). After a learning phase in which L2 words were learned either by a picture- or a word-based method, children were tested in a backward-word translation recognition task at two times (immediately vs. one week later). Results showed that the participants made more errors when rejecting semantically related than semantically unrelated words as correct translations (semantic interference effect). The magnitude of this effect was higher in the delayed test condition regardless of the learning method. Moreover, the overall performance of participants from the word-based method was better than the performance of participants from the picture-word method. Results were discussed concerning the most significant bilingual lexical processing models.

Temporal acoustic correlates of the voicing contrast in European Portuguese stops

This study focuses on the temporal analysis of stops /p b t d k ɡ/ and devoicing analysis of voiced stops /b d ɡ/ produced in different word positions by six native speakers of European Portuguese. The study explores acoustic properties related to voicing. The following acoustic properties were measured: voice onset time (VOT), stop duration, closure duration, release duration, voicing into closure duration, duration of the preceding vowel and duration of the following vowel. Results suggested that when [b d ɡ] were devoiced, the acoustic properties stop duration, closure duration, duration of the following vowel, duration of the preceding vowel and duration of voicing into closure were relevant for the voicing distinction. Implications for research and practice in speech and language therapy are discussed. Further investigation is needed to find how the productions analysed in the present study were perceived by listeners, specifically productions of devoiced stops.

English vowel perception by native speakers of European Portuguese and Mandarin.

This study investigated the perception of eight American English stressed syllabic monophthongs (/i, I, E, æ, V, O, U, u/) by two groups of nonnative listeners: Portuguese and Chinese. Each group was formed by 15 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, with an upper‐intermediate level of English proficiency, all undergraduate students at a Portuguese university. An identification test was designed to investigate how the participants would perceive the English vowels, which are not present in their first language (L1) inventory as stressed monophthongs (/I, æ, V, U/ in the case of the Portuguese speakers, and all vowels but /i, u/ in the case of the Mandarin speakers). The large number of target vowels played as stimuli allowed a cross‐language analysis of vowel distribution in the acoustic space: for the two groups of EFL listeners, it was more difficult to perceive the English vowels located in a high density area of the English vowel space than those in less crowded areas. For the two groups of speakers, the vowels /æ/ and /U/ had the greatest misidentification rates.

Rhythmic characteristics of prose and verse in varieties of Portuguese

Whether varieties of Portuguese differ in their rhythmic classification is not entirely clear. European Portuguese is generally considered to employ stress‐based rhythm whereas the rhythmic classification of Brazilian Portuguese is disputed. Acoustically‐based measures of rhythm have usually employed spoken prose passages for language samples. Possibly, the apparent rhythmic characteristics of language varieties may be clarified by employing different types of language materials. We selected spoken prose and traditional verse for investigation. Five native speakers of European Portuguese and five native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese recorded a sonnet consisting of 154 syllables and a short prose passage consisting of 270 syllables. From these recordings, acoustically based rhythm metrics, as suggested by Ramus, et al. [Cognition 73, 1999, 265‐292] and Ling, et al. [Language and Speech 43, 2000, 377‐401] were calculated. Measures of consonantal duration variability increased from spoken prose to spoken verse, suggesting that the talkers employed slower, more clearly articulated speech in reading the poem than in reading the prose passage. However, the two tasks did not clearly distinguish between the two varieties of Portuguese.

The rhythmic characterization of two varieties of Portuguese

As spoken in Europe, Portuguese is said to be stress-timed, while Brazilian Portuguese appears to display characteristics of both stress and syllable timing [P. A. Barbosa, D.E.L.T.A. 16, 369–402 (2000)]. We employed the Ramus et al. metric, based on acoustic-phonetic measurements [Ramus et al., Cognition 73, 265–292 (1999)], to investigate the possibility of distinguishing between the two varieties of the language. Five native speakers of European Portuguese and five native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese recorded the same short prose passage taken from a magazine. The talkers were asked to read at a normal, comfortable rate. The reading time of the passage averaged 60 s, with considerable differences among the talkers. From the vocalic and consonantal intervals, the Ramus metrics, percent vocalic interval and standard deviation of consonantal and vocalic interval, were calculated. The five talkers of the two language varieties differed on the values of these parameters. The values of %V and SD-V showed overlap between the two talker groups, while the BP talkers tended to show lower values for SD-C. Apparently, the rhythmic characterization of the two varieties of the language is not clearly categorical, but rather ranges along a continuum.

A parametric study of the spectral characteristics of European Portuguese fricatives

Studies of Portuguese phonetics and phonology indicate that fricatives are central to some interesting features of the language, yet studies of Portuguese fricatives have been few and limited. In this study, Portuguese fricatives were analyzed in ways designed to enhance our description of the language and to increase our understanding of the production of fricatives. Corpora of Portuguese words containing /f, v, s, z, ∫, z/, nonsense words of the pattern /V 1FV 2/ that follow Portuguese phonological rules, and sustained fricatives were recorded by four native speakers of European Portuguese (two men, two women). Results of analysis show that more than half of the voiced fricatives devoice; devoicing occurs more often in word-final fricatives. Averaged power spectra were computed for all fricatives and parameterized in order to aid comparisons across speaker and across corpus, and to gain insight into the production mechanisms underlying the language-specific variations. Substantial differences were found between spectra of voiced and unvoiced, same-place fricatives. The parameters spectral slope, frequency of maximum amplitude, and dynamic amplitude, derived from previous studies, behaved as predicted for changes in effort level, voicing, and location within the fricative. Changes in syllable stress, however, did not affect the fricatives in a manner consistent with effort level variation. Some combinations were also useful for separating the fricatives by place or by sibilance.