Open AccessElement Iteration Respecification Unstressed Word-Final [u] in Portuguese
Author(s) -
João Veloso
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
linguística/linguística
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2182-9713
pISSN - 1646-6195
DOI - 10.21747/16466195/lingespa18
Subject(s) - element (criminal law) , iterated function , mathematics , stress (linguistics) , word (group theory) , vowel , portuguese , linguistics , computer science , speech recognition , mathematical analysis , geometry , philosophy , political science , law
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