PROGRESSIVE PALATALIZATION OF / t / AND / d / PRECEDED PALATALIZED FRICATIVE IN ALAGOAS

CHANGE IN PROGRESS TOWARDS STABILIZATION

Abstract

This study investigates, from theoretical-methodological assumptions of Variationist Sociolinguistics, the variable assimilation process of progressive palatalization of alveolar occlusives preceded by palatalized of alveolar fricative, as in linguistic forms of the type 'gos[t]o' ~ 'gos[tʃ]o' or 'des[d]e' ~ 'des[dʒ]e', in Alagoas. The study analyzes 5,142 occurrences of spontaneous speech data from 168 participants distributed in 7 cities in Alagoas/AL, stratified between age, sex/gender and education. The variants were classified by spectrographic analysis using the PRAAT computer program. The data were statistically analyzed in the R program, on its RStudio integrated development platform, by performing the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), the Wald test and the intraclass coefficient correlation test (ICC) in a model multivariate multilevel regression. It is concluded that there is a linguistic change in progress towards palatalization and that the process is related to diatopic aspects, being more productive in the state capital and less productive in the western region. Our hypothesis is that the process started in Maceió, expanding gradually and progressively towards the interior; the process tends to stable variation in the capital, differently from what is still observed in the interior of the state. It is also concluded that the process is not socially stigmatized, since education and sex/gender do not have a significant effect when choosing the variants.