O comportamento da variável palatal /ʎ/ no falar quilombola em Pernambuco

Abstract

The present work aims to analyze the variable behavior of the palatal lateral consonant /ʎ/ in Pernambuco quilombos. To this end, phonetic occurrences were selected for words such as grelha, colher, ovelha, abelha, orelha, joelho, mulher and barulho. The idea starts from the preliminary verification of some achievements with the referred consonant kept in the words, but also with items in which there was both depalatalization and iotization. Through a theoretical-methodological support given to Labov (1972) in which Variationist Sociolinguistics predominates, through which each linguistic aspect that can be modified according to the speaker's preference is influenced by a social valuation that guides their choice. The research was conducted in five quilombos (three from the Sertão do Moxotó and two from Ipanema) with twenty people evenly distributed in terms of sex and two age groups – 18 to 30 years and 50 to 65 years. The analysis process was done using Goldvarb X, correlating the social variables to the linguistic ones (tonicity, previous context and following context). The results point to an inhibition of the conservative variant, since women, especially in the second age group, preferred the innovative variants. From the linguistic point of view, in turn, the depalatalization results from the vowel articulated after the palatal consonant, not being favorable, therefore, the tonicity and the preceding context.