A New Account of Brazilian Portuguese Word Stress. LACUS FORUM, Journal of the Linguistic Associationof Canada and the United States, 42:1.52-59 (2023)

Résumé En

In this paper, I propose a new account of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) stress innon-verbal words. The issue of word stress in BP has been addressed in various theoreticalframeworks. A point of disagreement between phonologists is the relevance of syllableweight in word stress assignment. In this paper, I propose a new analysis of BP word stressassignment in the framework of CVCV phonology. The potential for empty syllabicpositions in this theory enables us to generalize unmarked word stress in the non-verballexicon in BP (i.e., paroxytonic with light final syllables and oxytonic with heavy finalsyllables) – unmarked stress systematically falls on the penultimate vocalic position. Allexceptions to this generalization must have word stress marked in the lexicon.