On the emergence of [n] in the derivation of nasal-final words in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This article deals with the correspondence between words closed by [n] followed by a vowel-initial suffix (e.g., ca[n]al 'channel', tupi[n]ismo 'Tupinism') and their respective bases in Brazilian Portuguese (e.g., cano 'pipe', tupi 'Tupi'). The data sources for the analysis are the Corpus Brasileiro, representing the lexicon in use, and a pseudoword test, representing the potential lexicon. Two representational hypotheses are contrasted in the analysis of this correspondence: the abstract approach, in which the bases are assumed to be closed by a VN structure, and the concrete approach, according to which [n] is part of the base or a product of epenthesis. The selection of the pattern VN was assumed as the response variable in the statistical analysis. According to the logistic regression test, final-stress bases and mid and high vowels preceding [n]Vsuffix are predictors of the VN pattern for the two samples. In the potential lexicon, the interaction between high frequency lexical strings and the suffixes -icV and -ismV as well as the random variables 'participant' and 'pseudoword' also contribute to the selection of the base pattern VN. The results confirm the plausibility of the abstract approach in the analysis of [n]Vsuffix forms in Brazilian Portuguese.