Weight gradience and stress in Portuguese

Abstract

This paper examines the role of weight in stress assignment in the Portuguese lexicon, and proposes a probabilistic approach to stress. I show that weight effects are gradient, and weaken monotonically as we move away from the right edge of the word. Such effects depend on the position of a syllable in the word, as well as on the number of segments the syllable contains. The probabilistic model proposed in this paper is based on a single predictor, namely weight, and yields more accurate results than a categorical analysis, where weight is treated as binary. Finally, I discuss implications for the grammar of Portuguese.

Prominence Augmentation via Nasalization in Brazilian Portuguese

“…At this point, we arrive at a theory with potentially more weight distinctions than are required for stress assignment and quantity-sensitivity per se. This immediately brings us to the gradient model of Brazilian Portuguese stress in Garcia (2017), similar to the gradient model of weight presented in Ryan (2014). In such a model, specific gradient values are assigned to onsetful vs onsetless syllables and to those with coda consonants / nasalization.…”

“…In such a model, specific gradient values are assigned to onsetful vs onsetless syllables and to those with coda consonants / nasalization. In the absence of specific numerical values at present, we can abstractly formalize a scale as in (24), leading to the revised tableau in 25 More refined models of gradient stress, such as those in Garcia (2017), who adopts a logistic regression, though without specific constraint formulations, would be needed to confirm these with specific durational values, ideally in a manner akin to that developed in Ryan (2014) for gradient onset weight.…”

Extrametricality and second language acquisition

“…Consequently, given nonce words, native Portuguese speakers will almost always follow the regular patterns in the language (Hermans & Wetzels 2012). This correlation observed in the Portuguese lexicon creates a confounding factor for production tasks: Because (word-final) coda and nucleus effects are much stronger than onset effects (Garcia 2014b), such tasks would not be appropriate to investigate other possible effects in the language. In fact, any target stress pattern that is not regular in the language is difficult to examine with a production task-this was also observed for L2ers in the pre-test ( §3.1 below), which involved the production of isolated words and a paragraph: Learners generalized based on the regular patterns in the language.…”

“…When examining lexical patterns, an important distinction needs to be made between syllabic shapes that favour stress and syllabic shapes that are more commonly attested. Based on Garcia (2014b), having a coda consonant in the penult syllable makes penult stress slightly more likely. On the other hand, among all words with penult stress in the lexicon, more than 70% have no coda in the penult syllable.…”

Syllable weight and duration: A rhyme/intervals comparison

“…The first is of the sort presented in Ryan (2014) and Garcia (2017) where corpora are examined and a correlation has been found between the number of segments in an interval and its weight behavior. The second is of the sort discussed in Hirsch (2014) where a production experiment shows the stress-drawing effect of larger intervals.…”