Ruth Monserrat

Grapheme-phone transcription algorithm for a Brazilian Portuguese TTS

This paper describes one of the aspects of an ongoing research to improve the synthetic speech quality for a Brazilian Portuguese text-to-speech synthesis system. This paper focuses on the grapheme-phone transcription algorithm. A complete set of rules for every grapheme is presented. Experimental results, obtained running the proposed algorithm through a text database, gave rise to 98,43% of accuracy rate.

Hierarquia referencial em línguas Tupi

Resumo: Algumas linguas da familia Tupi-Guarani apresentam uma Hierarquia Referencial que ocorre no nivel morfo-sintatico, na forma de prefixos verbais que especificam o sujeito ou objeto. E esta Hierarquia Referencial que determina a ocorrencia de prefixos verbais de pessoa, nestas linguas. Estudos recentes em universais linguisticos (Hawkinson & Hyman (1974); Foley (1976); Silventein (1977)) propoem a existencia de uma hierarquia natural de topico. Baseados nestes estudos tentamos encontrar evidencias para o mecanismo da referida hierarquia em outras linguas da familia Tupi-Guarani e em certas linguas que pertencem a outras familias do ramo Tupi. Na conclusao do trabalho, formula-se a hipotese da existencia de uma Hierarquia Referencial em estagios mais antigos das linguas discutidas — isto e, em Proto-Tupi —, o que fornece uma explicacao para as mudancas que estao ocorrendo em seu estagio atual. Abstract: Certain languages of the Tupi-Guarani family present a Referential Hierarchy which occurs at the morphosyntactic level in the form of verbal prefixes that specify the subject or object. It is this Referential Hierarchy that determines the occurrence of personal verbal prefixes in those languages. Recent studies on linguistic universals (Hawkinson & Hyman (1974); Foley (1976); Silverstein (1977)), propose the existence of a natural topic hierarchy and provide evidence for the mechanism of the referred hierarchy in other languages of the Tupi-Guarani family and in certain languages which belong to other families of theTupi stock. In the conclusion of the paper the hypothesis of the existence of a Referential Hierarchy in previous stages of the languages discussed — i.e., in Proto-Tupi —, is formulated which provides an explanation for the shifts taking place in their present stage.

A Língua Geral como código secreto de comunicação entre jesuítas

The aim of this article is to provide a translation into Portuguese and the historical context of a manuscript written in Lingua Geral of the Amazon, and one of the collection of documents confiscated from the German Jesuit, Anselm Eckart, when he was incarcerated at Almeida in Portugal in 1759. The document was identifi ed as a letter, although it makes no reference to known places, neither does it reveal the name of the sender nor of the receiver. Placenames are referred to in coded form. The letter was written in Lingua Geral, which was used as a secret code by the Jesuits from the Amazon, during their imprisonment in the college at Braga. It describes events imediately after November 3rd, 1759, such as the removal of the Jesuits from the college at Braga and their doubts and fears about the future of the members of the Order of Jesus.

Uma proposta de tradução do sexto mandamento de Deus em um confessionário Tupi da Amazônia de 1751

The present article transcribes and translates into Portuguese questions relating to the Sixth Commandment taken from a 1751 Tupi confessionary from Para which currently resides in the Brazilian National Library in Rio de Janeiro. Our translation is based on linguistic methodology using colonial Tupi dictionaries and we have carried out an analysis of the Tupi radicals used by missionaries to translate concepts of Christian sexuality.