Vocalic epenthesis and accent restrictions in the southern Brazilian Portuguese
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/2237-4876.2004v7n1p61Keywords:
Variation, Epenthesis, Optimality Theory.Abstract
The present work is part of the research project “Epenthesis variation in southern Brazilian Portuguese!, a quantitative study of such a phenomenon from the Varsul project corpus. We present the results obtained in the capitals Porto Alegre, Florianópolis and Curitiba, and propose a reinterpretation from the perspective of the Optimality Theory, of the interaction between epenthesis and accent in Portuguese. In this proposal, the accent restrictions family partially controls the syllable restrictions family, which explains the fact that the epenthesis phenomenon, which satisfies the demands of the syllabic structure, is blocked when resulting in violation of accent restrictions.