PURPOSE: the aim of this study is to elaborate a Phonetically Balanced Text for the European-Portuguese (EP) called "O Sol" (The Sun). METHOD: four subjects (two females and two males) with [21-49] year-old read aloud the text. Recordings were obtained with Olympus (VN-240PC and VN-2100PC) and were used to account the produced phonemes. The procedures were: 1) the comparison between the relative frequency of the phonemes of "O Sol" and the relative frequency described in PF_fone through the correlation coefficient of Pearson and the Mann-Whitney, 2) the comparison between the large and short transcriptions in order to analyze the co-articulation phenomenon 3) the analysis of the syllabic formats. RESULTS: statistical analysis showed that relative frequency occurrence of phonemes of the text "O Sol" have a strong correlation with those of PF_fone (r = 0,924). The median values of the relative frequency occurrence of phonemes of "O Sol" were significantly equal to the PF_fone (p<.05). CONCLUSION: the text "O Sol (The Sun)" is close to an ideal phonetically balanced text, since it achieved the predefined assumptions. Phonologically, it shows the most common formats syllable in the EP. We verified a decrease in relative frequency of phonemes in the close transcription, due to co-articulation phenomenon. Future work will focus on increasing said sample.
Voice; Voice Quality; Speech; Reading
