The Phonology of Panãra: A Prosodic Analysis

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed description and analysis of the prosodic phonology of Panãra (ISO code: kre), a Northern Jê language spoken in Central Brazil. Panãra exhibits culminative stress, which always falls on the last lexical vowel of a root or stem. This property gives rise to two stress patterns, namely ultimate and penultimate stress, where the latter arises from a process of vowel epenthesis that resolves a ban on word-final obstruent and approximant codas. Furthermore, the grammar exhibits a word-minimality requirement, where CRV and CVC roots are considered heavier than both CV and CV ː roots. Finally, segmental and prosodic well-formedness interact in complex ways in the grammar of Panãra, resulting in patterns of word-initial and morpheme-final [i] epenthesis.