The Post-Vocalic Lateral In The Community Of Lages/SC: An Analysis Under The Variational Theory

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the output forms of the post-vocalic lateral in the community of Lages/SC under the Variation Theory, since, in Brazilian Portuguese, the lateral /l/, when in the final position of a syllable, is performed in a variable manner, ranging from alveolar [l], velar [], semivowel [w], deletion [Ø] or rhotacism [r]. According to the literature, such variation may happen due to either social or linguistic factors. Due to the results obtained after running the software VARBRUL, we chose a binary analysis for the vocalization of the lateral against other forms of realization of the phoneme /l/, however comments that we considered appropriate regarding all of them are made.The analysis of our data is compared and contrasted with the results achieved in previous studies and shows that social factors such as age, educational background and sex are relevant to the application of a variable rule as well as the linguistic factors stress, morpheme border and precedent phonological context. Lastly we analyze the social factors that favor the many output forms of /l/, based on the data supplied by each of the interviewees used in this research.