Phonological conditions on Portuguese clitic placement: on syntactic evidence for stress and rhythmical patterns

Abstract

European and Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth EP and BP) are known to diverge considerably insofar as pronominal clitic placement is concerned. The first part of this paper attempts to show that most of these syntactic differences can be accounted for by a general phonological contrast between EP regular enclisis vs. BP native proclisis. How could such a difference be explained?Actually, clisis may provide remarkable evidence for a new claim on Portuguese stress and rhythmical patterns. In a second part, various phonetic considerations are adduced to support the view that EP has a syllabic-weight contrast and that lexical stress placement then follows a leftward mora-counting system. In BP, however, there is no such syllabic and accentual quantity. Finally, it is stated that such a structural difference parallels the fact that vowel reduction affects all EP unstressed (light) syllables, but only BP posttonic and not pretonic syllables.This may be accounted for by assuming that right-to-left quantitative stress systems (such as EP) involve pretonic integration within the preceding foot (and hence pretonic floating mora at the lexical stage), while nonquantitative systems (such as BP) show true (linked) pretonic strings. Clearly, EP enclisis and BP proclisis appear thus as crucial evidence for what may be a particular example of the general distinction among rhythmical patterns, recently made by Wenk and Wioland, between 'leader timing and 'trailer timing , here applied to lexical stress languages, which would then display either (as EP)/foot -^pretonic/or (as BP)jpretonic + foot I structures, respectively.

Prosodic filters on syntax: an interface account of second position clitics

“…For Romance, seeBrandyo de Carvalho (1989),Jacobs (1994),Halpern (1995), and references cited therein.…”

Formally–grounded phonology: From constraint–based theories to theory–based constraints

“…Thus, while in Portuguese internal /Vr/-rhymes /V/ can be either a full or a reduced vowel according to whether it is stressed or not, in final /Vr/-sequences /V/ is necessarily a full vowel whether it is stressed or not (cf. Carvalho 1989), just as /C/ is necessarily an obstruent in /#sC-/-clusters but not in /-sC-/-clusters. Likewise, just as /#sC-/-clusters imply an initial syllable, so do /-VL#/-sequences count for two morae, and often yield an epenthetic vowel, as opposed to internal /VL/-rhymes which are monomoraic.…”

Colocação pronominal no Português do Brasil: a contribuição de estudos de percepção auditiva

“…Ainda sobre fundamentos do presente trabalho, é importante fazer referência a Carvalho (1989). O autor estabelece uma comparação dos clíticos nas variedades brasileira e lusitana do português e, nesse processo, acaba por mostrar relevantes características relacionadas ao perfil das vogais das sílabas átonas nessas variedades.…”