This study explores the nature of the oral-nasal vowel contrast in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). While vowel nasality is a salient property in the language, scholars differ on whether this property forms the basis of a phonological contrast. The presence of a consonant-like nasal resonance at the right edge of the heavily nasalized vowels (i.e., nasal appendix) leads to an analysis that nasal vowels may be product of a contextual nasalization rule (e.g., Camara Jr 1970, 1971), thus coarticulatory in nature. While most of the literature explores the issue from the perspective of production, the present study analyzes how BP listeners perceive nasal vowels in comparison to oral counterparts. If vowel nasality is coarticulatory, speakers should perceive it as they would other coarticulation; namely, they would perceptually compensate for vowel nasality, attributing the nasality to the nasal consonant element and hearing the vowel as essentially oral (Beddor & Krakow 1999). If the nasality is phonemic, however, it should not induce compensation. A forced-choice comparison task was presented to a group of 43 BP listeners, who had to compare nasality in vowels of paired stimuli with and without the appendix. Results show that participants did not perceptually compensate for vowel nasality. The substance of the contrast lies in the combination of vowel quality changes associated with nasality and the presence of a nasal appendix.

中文翻译：

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巴西葡萄牙语中元音鼻音的感知补偿

这项研究探讨了巴西葡萄牙语（BP）中口鼻鼻元音对比的本质。虽然元音鼻音是该语言的一个显着特性，但学者们在这种特性是否构成语音对比的基础上存在分歧。在重度鼻音的元音（即鼻附件）的右边缘存在类似辅音的鼻腔共振，这导致分析表明，鼻元音可能是上下文鼻音化规则的产物（例如，Camara Jr 1970，1971），因此本质上是共发音的。尽管大多数文献从生产的角度探讨了这个问题，但本研究分析了与听众相比，BP听众如何感知鼻元音。如果元音鼻音是共发音的，那么说话者应该像其他共音一样感知它。也就是说，他们会在感知上补偿元音的鼻音，将鼻音归因于鼻辅音元素，并以基本口头的形式听到元音（Beddor＆Krakow 1999）。但是，如果鼻腔是音位，则不应引起补偿。向43位BP听众提出了一项强制选择的比较任务，他们必须比较配对和不带有阑尾的配对刺激的元音中的鼻音。结果表明，参与者没有在感知上补偿元音鼻音。对比的实质在于与鼻音有关的元音质量变化和鼻附件的结合。向43位BP听众提出了一项强制选择的比较任务，他们必须比较配对和不带有阑尾的配对刺激的元音中的鼻音。结果表明，参与者没有在感知上补偿元音鼻音。对比的实质在于与鼻音有关的元音质量变化和鼻附件的结合。向43位BP听众提出了一项强制选择的比较任务，他们必须在有或没有阑尾的情况下，对配对刺激的元音中的鼻音进行比较。结果表明，参与者没有在感知上补偿元音鼻音。对比的实质在于与鼻音有关的元音质量变化和鼻附件的结合。