Nasalization in brazilian portuguese: an autosegmental (re)view

Abstract

We propose to make a brief review on nasalization phenomena studies in Portuguese, aiming the phonological process of nasal harmonization that occurs in the variety of Brazilian Portuguese spoken in Vitória da Conquista-BA and region, a phenomenon hitherto not described for any Portuguese dialect. To do so, we consider as fundamental, D’Angelis (2002) analysis, which incorporates relevant concepts presented by Trubetzkoy, from the Prague School, and some points of Camara Jr. propose. We also propose to update the discussion with the approaches along the lines of auto segmental phonology, incorporating some insights of Piggott (1992), discussing with other analyzes for nasalization phenomena in other languages, especially Guarani (language of Tupi-Guarani Linguistic Family), as proposed by Costa (2010), which deals with the phonological processes involving nasality and nasal harmony in Brazilian indigenous languages , in order to verify if the researches on nasality phenomena in other languages can shed some light on the processes that occur in Portuguese.