The Phonology of Portuguese

Portuguese emerged from vulgar Latin during the course of the third century. Influential in its development were successive invasions by Germanic peoples, Visigoths, and Moors, the latter of whom were finally evicted in the thirteenth century. As a consequence of the newly-independent kingdomsimperial achievements, Portuguese is the national language of Brazil and the official language of several African countries. Maria Helena Mateus and Ernesto dAndrade present a broad description and comparative analysis of the phonetics and phonology of European and Brazilian Portuguese. They begin by introducing the history of Portuguese and its principal varieties. Chapter 2 describes the phonetic characteristics ofconsonants, vowels, and glides, and Chapter 3 looks at prosodic structure. Chapters 4 and 5 present the general characteristics of Portuguese nominal and verbal systems, the former considering inflectional and the latter derivational processes. Chapter 6 examines stress, main, secondary, and echo,and Chapter 7 describes phonological processes that are not related to the morphological structure of the word, including the peculiar process of nazalization. The authors deploy current theoretical models to explain the rich variety of Portuguese phonology and interrelated aspects of morphology. This is by far the most comprehensive account of the subject to have appeared in English, and the most up-to-date in any language.

Maria Helena Mateus is Full Professor in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon. She has studied within the field of linguistics in both Portugal and Brazil, and between 1982 and 1998 gave seminars on Portuguese linguistics in Cape-Verde, Cuba, EUA, France, Germany, Ireland, Macau, Mozambique, and Sweden.
Ernesto d'Andrade is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon. Prior to 1975 he taught in the universities of Paris VIII and Paris XIII. He has taught courses and seminars in Cape Verde, Mozambique, Brazil, and France, and given talks on Phonology, Portuguese linguistics, and Sociolinguistics in, among other countries, Belgium, Brazil, France, Holland, Mozambique, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the USA.