Prosodic Word and Morphological Derivation in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the prosodic status of words formed by morphological derivation in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Considering three types of prosodization -- composition, adjunction and incorporation (Booij, 1996; Ito & Mester, 2008; Vigário, 2011) --, I propose that prefixes in BP are subject to all of them, whereas suffixes are subject only to incorporation and composition, not to adjunction. The main argument to support this analysis comes from the diagnostic of stress assignment. In addition, I examine other phonological processes that occur within words in contrast to processes that occur at word boundaries, as well as the morphosyntactic behavior of the affixes involved. In addition, based on this description, I seek to problematize some consequences of this typology for the organization of the prosodic hierarchy and its effects on morphological transparency.