Prominence Augmentation via Nasalization in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate that dialectal and idiolectal variants of Brazilian Portuguese that exhibit rhotic metathesis (e.g. vidro > vrido ‘glass’), spontaneous nasalization of high vowels (as in diachronic hibernum > inverno ‘winter’ and non-standard ingreja ‘church’), and pretonic vowel lowering of mid-vowels are all instantiations of the same process: prominence-boosting in stressed, secondary-stressed, or word-initial positions.

Keywords

• spontaneous nasalization
• Brazilian Portuguese
• rhotic metathesis
• prominence augmentation
• initial syllables