Article published in:

Portuguese-Spanish Interfaces: Diachrony, synchrony, and contact
Edited by Patrícia Amaral and Ana Maria Carvalho
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 1] 2014
► pp. 151–174

The intonational phonology of Peninsular Spanish and European Portuguese

Meghan E. Armstrong | University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Marisa Cruz | University of Lisbon

The study of Spanish and Portuguese intonation within the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) framework has developed substantially over the past 30 years, and recent applications of common methodology make comparative studies more feasible. Here we compare the intonational systems of Peninsular Spanish (PS) and European Portuguese (EP), considering previous research on prosodic hierarchy, phrasing and tonal density. Finally, we compare the two tonal inventories and their respective (ToBI) labeling conventions. We find a considerable amount of overlap in terms of phonetic implementations of the tonal categories, showing, at times, labeling differences. We use this comparative analysis (i) to discuss these labeling differences and (ii) to motivate the need for uniform but also transparent labeling conventions in order to account for variation across Ibero-Romance varieties and as the field moves forward, Romance varieties.

Published online: 30 October 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.1.09arm

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