O PROCESSO DE SÂNDI EXTERNO NA AQUISIÇÃO DA FONOLOGIADO PORTUGUÊS BRASILEIRO ? UMA ABORDAGEM COM BASE NATEORIA DA OTIMIDADE

by Kickhöfel, Juliana Radatz

This research aimed to investigate the acquisition of external sandhi as part of thephonological development in children whose native language is Brazilian Portuguese (BP).Starting with a literature review on the process of external sandhi in adults, by followingthe analysis developed in Bisol (2003), this study proposes an optimality-theoreticalanalysis of both the production and the avoidance of external sandhi by Brazilian children.The corpus of the study encompassed the longitudinal data obtained from four Brazilianchildren, showing normal phonological development, aged 2:0 to 3:0 (years:months).Results show that it is possible to consider the same constraint ranking to account for theproduction of the three external sandhi processes ? Degemination, Elision andDiphthongization -, as we follow the ranking proposed by Bisol (2003); with this constraintranking, the processes of Elision and Diphthongization may be regarded as in variation. Asfor the acquisition process, the children applied two external sandhi avoidance strategies:1) a pause between words and 2) V2, rather than V1, deletion in the vowel sequence whichwould allow external sandhi to occur. V2 deletion also represented the process of Elisionin children?s phonological development, unlike the adult Elision pattern found in BrazilianPortuguese. In order to account for these avoidance strategies, we have employedconjoined constraints, following Bisol (2003). We have also discussed the non-applicationof external sandhi when blocked by a VV sequence whose second vowel carries primarystress, or by stress clash. The study reveals that children start applying external sandhiprocesses at an early age, though they also present sandhi avoidance strategies. Byfollowing Bisol (2003), we see that Optimality Theory proves efficient in the analysis ofthe data discussed