Prosodic analysis of Brazilian Portuguese attitudes

This paper presents the prosodic analysis of a corpus of Brazilian Portuguese attitudes. Attitudes are separated between the social and propositional categories, and performed either with an assertive or an interrogative modality. Previous studies show the particular relevance of prosodic cues for propositional attitudes, while visual cues are more relevant for social ones. This paper shows that this greater relevance of prosody for propositional attitudes is also observed on the prosodic parameters’ variations – and enhance particularly the clearly different and prototypical F0 contours that distinguished such expressions. The importance of lexical stress on the contour is emphasized, strengthening the global coherence of the speaker’s prosodic strategies.