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 13th century. As a consequence of the newly-independent kingdom's imperial achievements, Portuguese is the national language of Brazil and the official language of several African countries Maria Helena Mateus and Ernesto d'Andrade 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 goes on to describe the phonetic characteristics of consonants, 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.

This is a much appreciated book for those of us who regularly teach a course on the synchronic phonology and morphophonology of Portuguese....The book is divided into clear modules, the data in each section being clearly presented in well-organised tables, always including examples covering each of the possible cases of interest....Mateus and d'Andrade have crafted a very easy to read, well-organised exposition of their favourite analyses quite suitable for a course in the structure of Portuguese phonology.

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, Mozambinque, 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 theUSA.