A New Account of Brazilian Portuguese Word Stress. LACUS FORUM, Journal of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, 42:1.52-59 (2023)
Résumé
In this paper, I propose a new account of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) stress in
non-verbal words. The issue of word stress in BP has been addressed in various theoretical
frameworks. A point of disagreement between phonologists is the relevance of syllable
weight in word stress assignment. In this paper, I propose a new analysis of BP word stress
assignment in the framework of CVCV phonology. The potential for empty syllabic
positions in this theory enables us to generalize unmarked word stress in the non-verbal
lexicon in BP (i.e., paroxytonic with light final syllables and oxytonic with heavy final
syllables) – unmarked stress systematically falls on the penultimate vocalic position. All
exceptions to this generalization must have word stress marked in the lexicon.