Rio Grande do Sul contains the administrative territorial entity São Lourenço do Sul
Gaúcho Portuguese phonology
Phonemes of Porto-alegrense Portuguese
Although this process is very common in the Southeast, in Gaúcho Portuguese the letters "s" and "z" are never pronounced as palato-alveolar consonants in coda position (e.g., pasto "pasture" is [ˈpaʃtu] in Rio de Janeiro, but [ˈpastu] in Porto Alegre).
In Rio Grande do Sul, as in most of Brazil, the letters "t" and "d" are pronounced as palato-alveolar affricate consonants, when immediately succeeded by the vowel "i" (a process very similar to Russian palatalization and which, however, does not happen in the varieties of the Pampas). Moreover, the unstressed "e" and "o" are often "reduced" into /ɪ/ and /ʊ/, respectively. Therefore, in Porto Alegre, the unstressed "te" syllables are pronounced /tʃi/, for example, while in the Pampas they are usually pronounced /tɪ/:
Porto Alegre: antigamente – /ɐ̃(n)ˌtʃiɡaˈmeȷ̃tʃʲ/ or /ɐ̃(n)ˌtʃiɡaˈmentʃʲ/
Gaúcho Pampas: antigamente – /ɐ̃ˌtʃiɡaˈme̞nte̞/
(compare Spanish: antiguamente – /ãn̪t̪iɣ̞waˈmẽ̞n̪t̪e̞/)
The dialect of the Pampas had suffered a stronger influence of Spanish language, while the dialect of Porto Alegre suffers modern influences of the Southeastern varieties.
Also, the vowel nasalization in Porto-alegrense Portuguese is far different from that seen in French, for example. In French, the nasalization extends uniformly through the entire vowel. In Porto Alegre, the nasalization begins almost imperceptibly, and then gets far stronger in the end of the vowel, therefore being closer to the nasalization of Hindi-Urdu phonology (see Anusvara). In some cases, the nasal archiphoneme actually represents the addition of a nasal consonant, like /m, n, ŋ, ȷ̃, w̃ , ɰ̃/.
manta = /ˈmɐ̃ntɐ/
tampa = /ˈtɐ̃mpɐ/
banco = /ˈbɐ̃ŋku/
bem = /bẽȷ̃/
bom = /bõʊ̯̃/ or /ˈbõɰ̃/ or /ˈbõŋ/
pan = /ˈpɐ̃ɰ̃/ or /ˈpɐ̃ŋ/
It is also noteworthy that, in everyday speech, many unstressed vowels are not fully pronounced as they are supposed to be. For example:
toque = /ˈtɔkʲ/
mente = /ˈmẽȷ̃tʃ/
pouco = /ˈpokʊ̥/
Essentially, the vowels [e] and [i] are both reduced and devoiced (or completely deleted) in word-final position, and sometimes also when unstressed and between consonants, always palatalizing the previous consonant. The vowels [o] and [u] are also reduced and devoiced to [ʊ̥], analogously to what happens in Japanese (see Japanese phonology#Devoicing). More rarely, [a] may become [ɐ̥] as well.
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