This dissertation investigates the hypothesis that the more vowel-like a consonant is, the more difficult it is for listeners to classify it as geminate or singleton. A perceptual account of this observation holds that more vowel-like consonants lack clear markers to signal the beginning and ending of the consonant, so listeners don’t perceive the precise duration and consequently the phonological contrast may be neutralized in some languages. Three experiments were performed to address these questions using data from Persian speakers. In Experiment I, four speakers produced singleton and geminate tokens of the voiced oral consonants [d,z,n,l,j] and the glottals [h] and glottal stop at three speaking rates. It was found that Persian speakers do distinguish geminate durations from singleton durations for all manners even at very fast speaking rates, and vowels preceding geminates are slightly longer than those preceding singletons. Speaking rate had more of an effect on geminates than on singletons for all segments studied: the durations of the geminates decreased more in fast speech than the durations of the singletons did. In Experiment II, listeners heard manipulated continua of consonants ranging from singletons to geminates. Subjects’ identification curves were modeled using the cumulative Gaussian model. The modeled standard deviation was interpreted as the breadth of the perceptual threshold, and a broader threshold understood to indicate a less distinct perceptual boundary between the two categories. Obstruents [d,z] had smaller breadth values than the sonorants [n,l,j], and the glottals had the largest breadth values of all. This indicates that while sonorants were more difficult for listeners to categorize than obstruents, the glottals were the most difficult to categorize of the segments tested. Experiment III tested whether the modification of a specific parameter, the formant transition duration, would affect the perceptibility of the geminate/singleton contrast. A single token containing the glide [j] was manipulated to produce three different continua, each having a distinctly different manipulated transition: short, normal or long. It was found that the longer the transition was, the broader the perceptual threshold, thus making the consonant harder to categorize. / text

Orientador: Lourenço [UNESP} Chacon / Resumo: A fim de responder de que maneira a aquisição da ortografia de consoantes nasais e líquidas sofreria influências de aspectos fonológicos da língua – especificamente da estrutura silábica – e da seriação escolar, propusemos dois objetivos: (1) verificar em que medida a acurácia ortográfica de consoantes soantes é dependente das posições que essas consoantes podem preencher na estrutura da sílaba e/ou do ano escolar; e (2) verificar em que medida os tipos de erros são dependentes dessas variáveis – posição silábica e ano escolar. Duas hipóteses nortearam o desenvolvimento desta investigação: (a) a de que a acurácia ortográfica seria influenciada pela posição silábica em que a consoante soante pode ser registrada e também pela seriação escolar; e (b) a de que os tipos de erros cometidos seriam também influenciados pela posição silábica e seriação escolar. Nossas hipóteses foram embasadas na organização hierárquica da sílaba (SELKIRK, 1982), bem como em parâmetros educacionais que regem a dinâmica do ciclo I do Ensino Fundamental. Para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa, analisamos produções textuais de crianças, com idades entre seis e oito anos, matriculadas em turmas do Ciclo I do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola pública. Essas produções consistem em recontagens de quatro narrativas. Na análise dos dados, consideramos a relação entre: (a) acurácia ortográfica com posições estruturais da sílaba, ano escolar e posição de coda na palavra; e (b) omissões e substituições com posições... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: In order to answer how the orthography acquisition of nasal and liquid consonants would be influenced by phonological aspects of language – specifically syllable structure – and school grade, we proposed two objectives: (1) to verify how the orthography accuracy of sonorant depends on the positions these consonants may fill in the syllable structure and/or the school year; (2) to verify how these kinds of errors depend on these variables – syllable position and school year. Our hypotheses were based on the syllable hierarchical organization (SELKIRK, 1982), as well as on educational parameters that govern the dynamics of cycle I of elementary school. For the development of this research, we have analyzed text compositions by six- to eight-year children enrolled in elementary school classes of a public school. These compositions consist of rewriting of four narratives. In the data analysis phase, we have considered the relationship between: (a) orthographic accuracy with structural positions of the syllable, school year and coda position in the word; and (b) omissions and replacement with structural positions of syllable, school year and coda position in the word. We have performed analyses for nasal consonant class and liquid consonant class independently. As a result we found: (a) for nasal consonants: success percentage higher than error percentage in all the syllable positions; effect of syllable position in orthographic accuracy, except for type of error; effect of school... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor