 | Portuguese language: Encyclopedia II - Portuguese language - Sounds
Portuguese language - Sounds
Main article: Portuguese phonology
As with French, Portuguese is often noted for its contrastive use of nasal vowels and the large number of diphthongs. European Portuguese has 9 simple non-nasal vowel phonemes (one of which occurs only in unstressed syllables); Brazilian Portuguese has 7. Both dialects have 5 simple nasal vowel phonemes, and 10 oral and 4 nasal diphthongal phonemes. There are 19 consonant phonemes.
European Portuguese differs from the dialects spoken in Brazil and the former Portuguese colonies by a marked velarization that affects vowels as well as consonants. The vowels are generally lowered and centralized (approaching a schwa), giving the pronunciation a distinctly lax quality that is present in colloquial as well as formal speech and often results in complete reduction of vowels.
Portuguese language - Consonants
- In European Portuguese, /b, d, g/ are only pronounced as plosives when they occur at the beginning of the word. Following vowels, they are pronounced as the corresponding fricatives [β, ð, ɣ]. In Brazilian Portuguese these consonants are always pronounced [b, d, g].
- In most Brazilian dialects, /d/ and /t/ become affricated before the [i] (/i/ or unstressed /e/) and are pronounced markedly as [tʃ] and [dʒ].
- In European Portuguese, /l/ is generally velarized, [ɫ].
- In Brazilian Portuguese /l/ is pronounced as [w] at the end of the syllable.
- In different dialects, /ʁ/ can be pronouced [ʁ] (not usually in Brazilian Portuguese), [h] or [x]. In Brazilian Portuguese, /ɾ/ is usually pronounced in the same fashion when it occurs at the end of a syllable.
Portuguese language - Vowels
The European Portuguese /ɯ/ is by tradition transcribed as a high central vowel [ɨ], but is more accurately described as a somewhat centralized high back unrounded vowel, [ɯ̈]. [ʏ] for some /u/ occurs in the dialects of Portalegre, Castelo Branco, Algarve (Barlavento area) and São Miguel Island. [ø] occurs in São Miguel Island, for example in boi [bø] "ox".
Portuguese language - Lexical stress
Portuguese features lexical stress, which can be the sole distinguishing feature of minimal pairs:
falaram "they spoke" vs. falarão "they will speak" (EP and BP)
dúvida [ˈduvidɐ] "doubt (noun)" vs. duvida [duˈvidɐ] "he doubts" (EP and BP)
ouve ['ouvi] "he hears" vs. ouvi [ou'vi] "I heard" (only in BP)
túnel ['tunɛl] "tunnel" vs. tonel [tu'nɛl] "wine cask" (only in EP)
Primary stress may vary between any of the three final syllables of the word, but mostly on the last two. In EP, a secondary stress falls on syllables with diphthongs when the primary stress is placed elswhere in a word. There is a partial correlation between the position of the stress and the final vowel; for example, the final syllable is usually stressed when it contains a nasal phoneme or a diphthong, or an open vowel. Portuguese spelling rules take advantage of this correlation to minimize the number of diacritics.
A notable feature of EP is the historical erosion of vowel phonemes that precede the stressed syllable. This phenomenon, which has not occurred in BP, often leads to the replacement of two successive syllables by a single syllable with a consonant cluster. Because of this trend, 16th century Portuguese poems no longer scan when read in EP, but still do in BP.
Portuguese language - Prosody and tone
Phrase- and sentence-level stress and intonation are important to Portuguese, and differ significantly between dialects. European Portuguese is often described as a stress-timed language (consistent with the its loss of pre-stress vowels), while Brazilian Portuguese is syllable-timed.
Tone is not lexically significant in Portuguese, but there are of six dynamic tone patterns that affect entire phrases, which indicate the mood and intention of the speaker such as implication, emphasis, reservation, etc. As in most Romance languages, interrogation is expressed mainly by sharply raising the tone at the end of the sentence.
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