A nasalização no português brasileiro pela teoria da otimidade

Abstract

Abstract The acceptance of the hypothesis of a /vN/ sequence as the basis of both nasal vowels and diphthongs, and the investigation of the nature of the nasal consonant in syllable coda, led us to relate subspecification of the nasal segment to the triggering of nasalization through the principles of Prosodic Licensing (Itô 1986,1989) and Autosegmental Licensing (Goldsmith 1990). Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993, McCarthy & Prince 1993) conceives these principles as restrictions. The model predicts that the interaction of restrictions in a hierarchy determines the choice of the optimal form from a group of candidates generated by the grammar of a language for a given input. The conflict between Licence(place) and HavePlace chooses the homorganic NC sequence as one of the three possible optimal forms for the /vN/ sequence in word-internal position. In word-final position, the same two restrictions play a role in nasal glide formation from / oN/. The outcoming of a dissimilated peak-vowel is forced by MaxDist