Abstract
This study assumes that the internal structure of vowels consists of the combination of elements which can be iterated. According to previous research, it is also assumed that element iteration in Portuguese provides vowels with inherent weight; word-finally, such vowels are stress-attractors. Notwithstanding, Portuguese has a great amount of words with unstressed final [u] (i.e., a vowel consisting of the iteration of {U}), as it is the case of inflected forms of nouns and adjectives. After analysing diachronic and morphological data, it is proposed that element iteration can have different representations at the lexical and the post-lexical levels. On the basis of this observation, it is proposed that element iteration functions as a weight- and stress-assigner only when lexically specified
Highlights
In this paper, it is our wish to return to a question that was presented and discussed in a previous volume of this journal under the editorship of Prof
Ana Maria Brito, the academic whose career is celebrated in this special issue: the relationship between element iteration (EI), inherent weight of segments (IWS) and primary stress assignment in Portuguese
Element iteration is an interesting subject in phonological research, since it can shed some light on the much-debated issue of whether phonology can admit any type of recursion
Summary
It is our wish to return to a question that was presented and discussed in a previous volume of this journal under the editorship of Prof. After reviewing some diachronic and morphological information, it will be proposed that phonetic final [u] can correspond, lexically, to /u/ or to /o/ This conclusion makes it mandatory to accept that the lexical specification of elements of one given phonetic vowel might not always be the same. The different accentual behavior of final [u] in Portuguese will be explained, in sections 4 and 5, mainly, as the result of this lexical/post-lexical dyadic representation of vowel elements
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