Talk:Portuguese phonology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Portal:Portugal
 Portugal Portal
Portuguese phonology is part of WikiProject Portugal, a project to improve all Portugal-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other Portugal-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
Portugal To-do:
This article is part of WikiProject Phonetics, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to phonetics and descriptive phonology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.


Contents

[edit] Introduction

The introduction needs some work. The criticism of foreign misinterpretation of the vowel distinction needs to be toned down quite a bit. Peter Isotalo 11:51, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Not only that. Phonology, allophones and dialectal differences are all mish-mashed into one big issue of "having many vowels". --Pablo D. Flores 12:50, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rodizio

Hi, I was working the article rodizio and I was thinking it might be nice to put it in IPA. Unfortunately, I don't speak Portuguese. The article says the pronunciation is "ro-DEE-zhyoo". This seems to conflict with the note in the orthography section here that "z" between vowels is pronounced [z]. Any advice? Lesgles (talk) 05:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Leave it to me... Ciacchi 16:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! Lesgles (talk) 04:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits to the paragraphs on diphthongs

I've made some considerable changes to the paragraphs on oral and nasal diphthongs:

I deleted all the increasing diphthongs because I don't think they're usually counted as diphthongs per se, and because increasing diphthongs in Portuguese can be treated as hiatuses.
I deleted the statement "[ej] is only pronounced as [ɐj] in Lisbon. In the rest of Portugal, it is pronounced like common [ej]", because it's not accurate. This pronunciation is quite common in Portugal, nowadays.
I moved up and expanded a note on the pronunciation of the digraph ou which was at the bottom of the page. 30 Mar. 2006.

[edit] â ân

i've never seen a circunflex accent on a. only on e and o. can anyone give examples? --itaj 11:26, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Câmara, gândara, tâmara, trâmite, Cândido, Tâmega. Joaopais 16:45, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
is it like that in BP too or just EP? --itaj 14:57, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The examples that Joaopais gave are written the same way in BP and EP. Are you sure you haven't seen the word câmara before? FilipeS 17:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Or how about Bethânia? :) FilipeS


OK, thanks for the answers. well i have been in brasil six months and i speak portuguese quite fluently for day to day conversations, and pretty much i can write (correctly) everything i can say. but i've really never seen that before. every day is good for something new...
i only once heard the name tâmara of the fruit, but never seen it written, so i supposed it was támara. actually i think my brasilian friend pronounced it like á.
the other words i don't know at all. are most of them names?
is tâmara imported to portuguese? i know it's an old semitic word. is there some "original" or common vocabulary with â?
how common is â in general? --itaj 19:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The word câmara (city hall) is quite common. (I'm not sure the same term is used in Brazil, though.) The others are indeed uncommon, and the two last ones that Joaopais wrote are proper nouns. For the origin of tâmara, see here. All words with orthographic â are proparoxytones, and since Portuguese words are usually stressed on their last syllable, or on the one before the last, it's not surprising that you haven't noticed them yet.

On another note, I took a peak at your website, and I think here's a little incorrection in it. I would rather say página de capoeira. ;-) Regards. FilipeS 20:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

thanks. and then it's not just prepatoxytone. i know many prepaxoytones in portuguese, but they use á é í ó ú ê ô - like página :) it's just â that are too rare to have crossed my way until now.
and thanks for helping with the site. i need to ask something then: i wanted to specify that it is "the Capoeira" not just "capoeira", thus i wrote "página da capoeira" does it make no sense?

Why would you want to say "the Capoeira"? Isn't the site devoted to capoeira in general? FilipeS 21:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

oh, got you. thanks. --itaj 11:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, aren't the stressed vowels in "página" and "câmara" two different phonemes in Brazilian Portuguese ? At least, my English/Brazilian Portuguese dictionary gives two different transcriptions for them. 161.24.19.82 21:02, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the former is an oral vowel, and the latter is nasal. FilipeS 16:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

all â examples given above are nasal vowels (come before m or n). does â exist as oral vowel (non-nasal)? examples? --itaj 15:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Only in European Portuguese, as far as I know. FilipeS 15:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC).

what is only in EP (as far as you know)? which of the following are true:

  1. â comes only before m or n and pronounced nasal in BP but oral in EP. as in the above examples: Câmara, gândara, tâmara, trâmite, Cândido, Tâmega.
  2. there are words with â that is not before m or n (thus never nasal), but there words are used only in EP. anyone has examples?

--itaj 02:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Nr. 2 is not true. Nr. 1 is half right, and half wrong: â does always come before m or n, and is always pronounced nasal in BP (as far as I know). In EP, â is not nasal if the m/n is followed by a vowel, but it is nasal if the m/n is followed by a consonant. This is explained in the article, if you read closely. FilipeS 14:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

thanks much for your help. you mean what's written after the table in the section of nasal monophthongs? i've seen it but could not derive that â never comes without a following n or m. also because â is listed with the oral monophthongs with no special comment. --itaj 18:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It's true that the article does not state that â always occurs before m or n. However, I think it does make clear that, whenever it occurs before m or n, it is nasal in BP. Given the written form of a word, this should be enough information to know how to pronounce it. On the other hand, given the spoken form of a word, you already know whether it's nasal or not. FilipeS 21:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

exactly that i understood. but i was curious to know about the always part because then i can think of â as the nasal allophone of á. so they're much like the regular tonic oral/nasal a which differ in pronunciation about the same way. though as writing now i realise that i actually also need to know that á never comes before m or n. --itaj 22:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fricative allophones of the plosives in EP: citation needed

I'm going to rephrase the article, and ask for a citation for the statement that the plosives [b], [k], [g] have the fricative allophones [β], [ð], and [ɣ], respectively, in European Portuguese. The reasons are as follows:

  • While I have heard people pronounce words with these allophones, in my experience it is not that common, and most people do not use them consistently. They seem to be used only in some regions, or in high registers, and in songs like the fado. I would venture to say that in their everyday life even the people of Lisbon do not use these allophones consistently. I may be wrong, but if so I am not the only native speaker who has this impression. See this earlier discussion.
  • Mateus and d'Andrade (see references) state that there is no difference between the pronunciation of the plosives in Portugal and Brazil. FilipeS 13:40, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, they do. Footnote 2 to page 11. FilipeS

[edit] e in BP

sometimes unstressed e is pronounced /i/ (i think). like berimbau, tesoura. in tesoura it also palatalizes t like usualy i does, for being pronounced /i/.

is that correct? are there rules to know by the spelling of the word when e pronounced like that? --itaj 10:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Your observations are correct. The Wikipedia article just gives general guidelines. For more specific information regarding the phonology and other linguistic aspects of Portuguese, you should consult the literature, or specialized websites. ;-) FilipeS 21:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
BTw, unstressed "o" is also sometimes pronounced /u/ in Brazil like in Portugal, e.g. in words like "dormir", "cobrir", "bonita", "João", "doente", etc...

[edit] Palatalization of /t/ and /d/ before /i/

A user changed the comparison of this phenomenon of Brazilian Portuguese with the very similar one in Quebec French into an analogy with Japanese, claiming that Japanese is a better analogy. I would like to know why, before accepting the change. FilipeS 21:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

i think you should keep both comments even if you accept the new one. french is closer to portuguese so it makes it interesting in a different way. also someone with interest in portuguese is more likely to know some french than japanese. --itaj 22:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Both comparisons are indeed interesting, although neither of them coincides completely with the palatalization seen in Brazilian Portuguese: Japanese palatalizes all consonants before /i/, not just /t/ and /d/; and while Quebec French palatalizes only the consonants /t/ and /d/, it does so not just before /i/, but also before /y/ and /u/.

In any event, there's already a reference to Japanese at Brazilian Portuguese. FilipeS 12:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I reverted changes made by Ciacchi, asserting that idade, sorte, etc. are palatalized rather than affricated; this is simply wrong. It is contrary to numerous sources (e.g. Routledge's "The Romance Languages") and is contrary to what my ears tell me. Benwing 07:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Benwing. 13:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Please note that "palatalized" and "palatal" are two separate things. FilipeS
and neither of them are correct. "palatalization" is ok as a general description of the process which produced the affricates, but not as a description of their phonological manifestation. Benwing 06:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] delete the section on phonotactics?

someone recently added a section on "phonotactics". i see little point in the section as-is -- there is really no purpose in all the examples, and the basic idea could be summarized in a couple of sentences, but even then i don't see what is gained by the section. a real section on the phonotactics of portuguese would not try to reduce its phonotactics down to CCVC and such but would describe the actual restrictions. i.e. yes you can say "frustrar" but not "rfusrtar", nor "ftustrar", nor (in BP) "frustrac". also, EP and BP differ -- EP allows "advogado" but BP wants "ad/i/vogado". descriptions in terms of CCVC and such only work for languages like arabic, where the phonotactics actually work based on number rather than type of consonants. Benwing 07:24, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with you. José San Martin 13:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree as well. The section is not informative in its current form, and it is unnecessary. FilipeS

[edit] incorrect BP pronunciation

Discussed at Talk: Portuguese Language.

[edit] Pronunciation of "ou"

The following has recently been added to the article.

Most speakers nowadays pronounce the digraph ou as a monophthong [o] when there's no possibility of confusion, although in some regions of Brazil and northern Portugal it is still pronounced as the falling diphthong [ou̯].

It's not clear to me what this "danger of confusion" might be. There are a few minimal pairs for the diphthong versus the monophthong, true, but most people in Portugal get along fine pronouncing both the same way. Context clears any doubts. Moreover, this pronunciation "to avoid danger of confusion" seems to be only done in Brazil (perhaps out of linguistic purism). Unless this is clarified, I am going to remove the remark from the article. FilipeS 14:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Placement of Diphthongs section

This is not a big deal, but just for the record the reason why I had moved the Diphthongs section down was that they are not phonemes. I thought it was neater to discuss all phonemes first, and then list the diphthongs (which have a very straightforward correspondence with spelling, anyway, so they could just as well be listed at Portuguese orthography). FilipeS 15:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New reference

What is the author, title, etc., of the newly added reference? FilipeS 19:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../p/o/r/Talk%7EPortuguese_phonology_2779.html"