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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14: Selected papers from the 46th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Stony Brook, NY
Edited by Lori Repetti and Francisco Ordóñez
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14] 2018
► pp. 325–340

Chapter 19
Timing properties of (Brazilian) Portuguese and (European) Spanish

| University of Delaware
| University of Delaware
| McGill University

Linguistic rhythmic or timing categories, usually defined in terms of isochrony, remain controversial as a meaningful typology for classifying languages, despite decades of research. Romance languages offer an opportunity to address this question since closely related languages are proposed to be at different ends of the typology. We test two such languages: European Spanish (ES) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Instead of investigating isochrony per se, however, we examine the interface between timing and prominence properties. Since duration is associated with prominence, we test the hypothesis that syllable-timed languages (ES) do not alter duration to express prominence, while non-syllable-timed languages (BP) do. Comparisons of lexical and sentential prominence effects on duration support our hypothesis, confirming the proposed distinction between the rhythmic classes of the two languages.

Keywords: stress-timing, syllable-timing, Brazilian Portuguese, European Spanish, duration, stress, focus, isochrony, rhythm
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Rhythmic typology and the classification of European Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
    • 2.1Syllable- and stress-timing
    • 2.2Rhythmic classification of European Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
  • 3.Experimental investigation of rhythm in European Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
    • 3.1Methodology
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Stimuli
    • 3.5Analyses
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Binary logistic regression analysis (BLRA) results
    • 4.2Duration
    • 4.3Duration ratios
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Manifestation of prominence in European Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
    • 5.2Measurements of relative duration
    • 5.3Rhythm as duration manipulation
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.14.19vog
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