Voice Onset Time in Pomerano-Brazilian Portuguese bilinguals

Abstract

Pomerano is a scarcely researched variety of Low German, which was brought to Southern Brazil by large groups of immigrants from former Pomerania in the 1850s. Today, the language is still used in situations of informal communication in the respective communities, along with the majority language, Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The long-lasting contact between Pomerano and BP has left several traces in both languages at all linguistic levels, including segmental phonology. Our study examines the Voice Onset Time (VOT) patterns of stop consonants in the two languages spoken by bilinguals. Control data gathered from monolingually raised speakers of BP are taken into account. The language pair under investigation displays the typical Germanic vs. Romance contrast, in that the phonological fortis-lenis opposition is phonetically realized by means of a long vs. short lag distinction in Pomerano, whereas BP exhibits a voicing lead for the lenis stops and a short lag for their fortis counterparts. Based on production data collected using a picture naming task in Pomerode (Santa Catarina, Brazil), it is shown that both elderly and younger speakers show the expected Germanic contrast in Pomerano. Regarding BP, the monolingual speakers present the typical Romance contrast, while the younger bilinguals display a mixed system in that they prevoice /b d ɡ/, but aspirate the voiceless stops. The older bilinguals, finally, use the same Germanic contrast in both of their languages, thus showing massive transfer from Pomerano to BP. Referring to Labov’s concept of overt vs. covert prestige, we argue that the latter, as becomes manifest in the stressing of a ‘Germanic’ feature of pronunciation, operates within both generations, although its effect can be felt with less intensity among the younger bilinguals.