The prosodization of derived words in Brazilian Portuguese: Joining perspectives

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper revisits and extends the debate on the prosodic status of affixed words in Brazilian Portuguese within the Optimality Theory framework, especially based on Selkirk (1996) and Itô & Mester (2008)’s proposals, according to which violable universal constraints are responsible for mapping grammatical and prosodic structures at the expense of a possible disobedience to certain principles of the prosodic hierarchy. Starting from a review of the literature on the topic, we bring together ideas from our previous studies (Bisol, 2000, 2004, 2007; Schwindt, 2001, 2008, 2013) to argue that affixed words in Brazilian Portuguese are subject to three types of prosodization - composition, adjunction and incorporation - prefixes being subject to all three, while suffixes only to incorporation and composition, not to adjunction. In contrast, clitics are characterized as structures labeled as attached to their hosts. The evidence comes especially from the diagnostics of stress assignment, but also from other word domain processes. Based on this description, we problematize some consequences of this typology for the organization of the prosodic hierarchy and its effects on morphological transparency by defending a continuum that goes from composite to incorporated structures.