O acento e as informações segmentais: uma abordagem multirrepresentacional

Abstract

This paper discusses the question of stress of words in Brazilian Portuguese, specially words with heavy final syllables. Therefore, two hypotheses of analysis were contrasted. The first, rule-based, proposes that the structure of the final syllable determines where the stress falls, resulting oxytones (unless there are issues such as the extrametric is involved). The second, based on a dynamic language perspective, proposes that multiple factors influence a given linguistic phenomenon. From an experimental study, which used pseudowords with CV-CV-CVC syllables, it was found that the stress is not only determined by the structure of the final syllable, but also by segmental information, which is accessed and used by the speakers during the process of assigning tonicity to pseudowords, contributing to the stress localization.