Portuguese phonology

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The phonology of Portuguese can vary considerably between dialects, in extreme cases leading to difficulties in intelligibility. This article focuses on the pronunciations that are generally regarded as standard. Since Portuguese is a pluricentric language, and differences between European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) can be considerable, both varieties are distinguished whenever necessary.

For finer information on regional accents, see Portuguese dialects, and for historical sound changes see History of Portuguese.

Contents 1 Consonants 1.1 Plosives 1.2 Laterals and Nasals 1.3 Rhotics 1.4 Fricatives 2 Vowels 2.1 Oral monophthongs 2.2 Nasal monophthongs 2.3 Unstressed vowels 2.4 Vowel alternation 2.5 Epenthesis 2.6 Further notes on the oral vowels 2.7 Oral diphthongs 2.8 Nasal diphthongs 3 Sandhi 3.1 Consonants 3.2 Vowels 4 Stress 5 Prosody 6 Footnotes 7 References 8 See also 9 External links

[edit] Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Portuguese

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental/ Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular
Nasal	m				n				ɲ
Plosive	p	b			t	d					k	g
Fricative			f	v	s	z	ʃ	ʒ					ʁ
Lateral					l				ʎ
Flap					ɾ

The consonant inventory of Portuguese is fairly conservative. The medieval affricates /ts/, /dz/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ merged with the fricatives /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, respectively, but not with each other, and there were no other significant changes to the consonant phonemes since then. However, several consonant phonemes have special allophones at syllable boundaries, and a few also undergo allophonic changes at word boundaries. In the following, the phrase "at the end of a syllable" can be understood as "before a consonant, or at the end of a word".

[edit] Plosives

Phoneme	Usual spelling	Examples	Meaning	Notes and variants
/k/	c, qu, q	casa, aqui, quatro	"house", "here", "four"	Never aspirated.
/g/	g, gu	gato, pagar, guerra	"cat", "to pay", "war"	As in English.
/p/	p	parte	"part"	Never aspirated.
/b/	b	bola, rabo	"ball", "tail"	As in English.
/t/	t	tosta, tinta	"toast", "ink"	Never aspirated. Voiceless postalveolar affricate allophone [tʃ] before /i, ĩ/, in most of southeastern Brazil (excluding some regions of São Paulo state).
/d/	d	dedo, cada, dia	"finger", "each", "day"	Voiced postalveolar affricate allophone [dʒ] before /i, ĩ/, in most of southeastern Brazil (excluding some regions of São Paulo state).

There is a slight difference between the Portuguese pronunciation and the English pronunciation of /t/, /d/. See the discussion at Dental consonant.

In northern and central Portugal, the voiced plosives /b/, /d/, /g/ may be pronounced as fricatives or approximants [β], [ð], [ɣ], except at the beginning of words, or after homorganic plosives.

[edit] Laterals and Nasals

Phoneme	Usual spelling	Examples	Meaning	Notes and variants
/m/	m	mapa, campo	"map", "field"	At the end of a syllable, /m/ is silent or voiceless, but nasalizes the vowel that precedes it.
/n/	n	número, canto	"number", "corner"	At the end of a syllable, /n/ is usually1 silent or voiceless, but nasalizes the vowel that precedes it.
/ɲ/	nh	ninho	"nest"	Palatal nasal. In most of Brazil and Angola, this phoneme is realized as a nasal palatal approximant [j̃], which nasalizes the vowel that precedes it: [ˈnĩj̃u].
/l/	l	logo, Brasil, hábil	"soon", "Brazil", "skillful"	Always somewhat velarized ("dark") in EP, especially at the end of syllables, where it is realized as [ɫ]. In most BP dialects, it merges with /ʎ/ before /i, ĩ/,[citation needed] and is vocalized to [u̯] at the end of syllables. In casual BP, unstressed il can be realized as as [ju].[1]
/ʎ/	lh	alho	"garlic"	Palatal lateral approximant. In some BP dialects, this phoneme is realized as palatal approximant [j], but this is not as widespread as yeísmo in Spanish.

¹ Except at the end of a few learned words, for some speakers.

There is a slight difference between the Portuguese pronunciation and the English pronunciation of /l/, /n/. See the discussion at Dental consonant.

[edit] Rhotics

Phoneme	Usual spelling	Examples	Meaning	Notes and variants
/ɾ/	r	caro, prato, sorte, mar	"expensive", "dish", "luck", "sea"	Alveolar flap.
/ʁ/	rr, r	rosa, tenro, carro, sorte, mar	"rose", "tender", "car", "luck", "sea"	There is much dialectal variation in the pronunciation of this phoneme. In Europe and Africa, its most frequent realizations are the voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] and the alveolar trill [r]. In Brazil, it is usually pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative [x], a voiceless glottal fricative [h] or voiceless uvular fricative [χ].[2] See also Guttural R in Portuguese.

The two rhotic phonemes /ʁ/ and /ɾ/ contrast only between vowels. At the beginning of words and after /l/, /n/, /z/, /ʒ/, only the former occurs, while elsewhere most dialects use the latter. However, several Brazilian dialects, including the dialect of Rio de Janeiro, use the former at the end of syllables.

Word final rhotics may be silent when the last syllable is stressed, in colloquial speech (especially in Brazil and some African countries).

[edit] Fricatives

Phoneme	Usual spelling	Examples	Meaning	Notes and variants
/f/	f	ferro	"iron"	Pronounced as in English.
/v/	v	vento	"wind"
/s/	ç/c, ss, s; x1, z1	sapo, psique, isto assado, cedo, maçã, externo, paz	"toad", "psyche", "this", "roasted", "early", "apple", "external", "peace"
/z/	z, s	cozer, felizmente, coser, turismo	"to cook", "fortunately", "to sew", "tourism"
/ʃ/	x, ch; s1, z1	xarope, caixa, enxame, externo, chuva, isto, paz	"syrup", "box", "swarm", "external", "rain", "this", "peace"	Voiceless postalveolar fricative. Pronounced like an English "sh".
/ʒ/	j, g; s1, z1	jogo, gelo, turismo, felizmente	"game", "ice", "tourism", "fortunately"	Voiced postalveolar fricative. Pronounced like the "s" in English "measure".

¹ At the end of syllables.

At the end of syllables, the sibilants /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ occur in complementary distribution. In most of Brazil, they are alveolar: /s/ is used before voiceless consonants or at the end of words, while /z/ is used before voiced consonants: e.g. isto /ˈistu/, turismo /tuˈɾizmu/. (This is like in English.) In most of Portugal, and in Rio de Janeiro and some northeastern states of Brazil, syllable-final sibilants have become postalveolar, /ʃ/ before a voiceless consonant or at the end of a word, and /ʒ/ before a voiced consonant: isto /ˈiʃtu/, turismo /tuˈɾiʒmu/.

See also the section on sandhi, below.

[edit] Vowels

Portuguese has one of the richest vowel phonologies of all Romance languages, with seven (in Brazil) to nine (in Portugal) oral vowels, five nasal vowels, ten oral diphthongs, and five nasal diphthongs. The high vowels /e o/ and the low vowels /ɛ ɔ/ are four separate phonemes, unlike in Spanish, and the contrast between them is used for vowel alternation. European Portuguese has also two near central vowels, one of which tends to be elided like the e caduc of French.
Like Catalan, Portuguese uses vowel height to contrast stressed syllables with unstressed syllables; the vowels /a ɛ e ɔ o/ tend to be raised to /ɐ e i ɨ o u/ (although /ɨ/ occurs only in EP) when they are unstressed. The dialects of Portugal are characterized by reducing vowels to a greater extent than others. Falling diphthongs are composed of a vowel followed by one of the semivowels /i u/; although rising diphthongs occur in the language as well, they can be interpreted as hiatuses.

[edit] Oral monophthongs

Phoneme	Usual spelling	Examples	Meaning	Notes and variants
/a/	a, á, à	prato, dá	"dish", "he gives"	As in many other languages, the symbol /a/ is used for the open central unrounded vowel, although /ä/ would be more precise. The exact realization of the near-open central unrounded vowel /ɐ/ varies somewhat with dialect. In Portugal, it is pronounced higher than in Brazil, approaching the mid central unrounded vowel [ə]. In BP, /a/ and /ɐ/ occur in complementary distribution: /ɐ/ occurs in final unstressed syllables and in stressed syllables before one of the nasal consonants /m/, /n/, or /ɲ/ followed by another vowel, and /a/ elsewhere. In EP, the general situation is similar (with /ɐ/ being more prevalent in unstressed syllables), but there are minimal pairs for the two vowels. Some of these are composed of a stressed word and an unstressed clitic, such as dá "he gives" and da "of the", but the vowels also contrast in verb forms of the first conjugation such as pensamos "we think" and pensámos "we thought" (pensamos in BP; even in Portugal, this distinction is not made in all regions, but it is observed in writing).
/ɐ/	a, â	vida, da (EP)	"life", "of the"
/e/	e, ê	sê, seda	"be" (imperative), "silk"	The close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/ and the open-mid front unrounded vowel /ɛ/ contrast only when they are stressed. In unstressed syllables, they occur in complementary distribution. After the stressed syllable, /e ~ ɛ/ are raised to /i/ in BP.[3]
/ɛ/	e, é	sé, pregar (EP)	"episcopal see", "to preach"
/i/	i, í, e1	si, teatro	"himself", "theatre"	Close front unrounded vowel. It has the approximant allophone [j], when it is the weaker component of a rising diphthong.
/ɨ/	e2	se (EP), pregar (EP)	"if", "to nail"	Near-close near-back unrounded vowel. There is no standard symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for this sound. The IPA Handbook transcribes it as /ɯ̽/, but in Portuguese studies /ɨ/ or /ə/ are traditionally used. This high near central vowel exists only in EP. It is replaced with /e/ or /i/ in BP, according to its position within a word. It is almost an unstressed allophone of /e ɛ/, with which it has very few minimal pairs, excluding monosyllabic clitics. In relaxed pronunciation, it is often elided.
/o/	o, ô	avô, corar (BP)	"grandfather", "to blush"	The close-mid back rounded vowel /o/ and the open-mid back rounded vowel /ɔ/ contrast only when they are stressed. In unstressed syllables, they occur in complementary distribution. After the stressed syllable, /o ~ ɔ/ are raised to /u/ in BP.[3]
/ɔ/	o, ó	avó, corar (EP)	"grandmother", "to blush"
/u/	u, ú, o1, ü3	nuca, curar	"back of the neck", "to heal"	Close back rounded vowel. It has the approximant allophone [w], when it is the weaker component of a rising diphthong.

¹ In unstressed syllables, and in a few monosyllables and clitics, such as e, por and porque.

² Only in unstressed syllables.

³ The diaeresis mark indicates that the vowel u is to be pronounced in the graphemes gu and qu, before e, i. It is only used in BP.

The acute accent and the circumflex accent indicate stress. The grave accent is used in some contractions.

[edit] Nasal monophthongs

Phoneme	Usual spelling	Examples	Meaning	Notes and variants
/ɐ̃/	ã, an, am, ân, âm	pranto, vã	"cry", "vane" (f)	The exact realization of the nasal central vowel /ɐ̃/ varies somewhat with dialect; in central and southern EP, it is pronounced higher than in BP. The nasal open central unrounded vowel [ã] occurs as an allophone of /ɐ̃/ in some dialects. See the section on connected speech, below.
/ẽ/	en, em, ên, êm	senda	"quest"
/ĩ/	in, im, ín, ím	sim	"yes"
/õ/	õ, on, om, ôn, ôm	ponde	"lay" (imperative)
/ũ/	un, um, ún, úm	nunca	"never"

In writing, nasal vowels are usually indicated with a tilde before vowels, or by writing, next to the vowel letter, a silent m (before b, p or m, or at the end of words) or n (before other consonants).

Although this is not usually done, the nasal vowels of Portuguese can be regarded as allophones of the oral vowels /a e i o u/ which occur in certain environments, namely:

(i) before a nasal consonant, /m/, /n/, followed by another consonant, or at the end of a word (considering that the grapheme ã is an abbreviation of /an/ at the end of words and before final s);

(ii) as a part of nasal diphthongs, in some special word endings: -ãe(s), -ão(s), -õe(s), -am, -em/-ém, -ens/-éns, -êm, -õem;

(iii) in certain compounds formed from words with the previous endings: mãezinha, cãozinho, vãmente, etc.;

(iv) as a part of nasal diphthongs, in a small number of other words: cãibra, muito, etc.

Thus, a beginner can get by in Portuguese without using nasal vowels, although he will not sound like a native.

[edit] Unstressed vowels

Some isolated vowels (meaning, those that are neither nasal, nor part of a diphthong) tend to change quality when they become unstressed in a fairly predictable way. In the examples below, the stressed syllable of each word is in boldface, and the vowel which undergoes alternation is underlined. The term "final" should be interpreted here as "at the end of a word, or before word final -s".

Stressed		Unstressed but not final		Unstressed and final
Vowels	Examples	Vowels	Examples	Vowels	Examples
/a/ or /ɐ/	parto pensar	/a/ (BP)	partir	/ɐ/	pensa
		/ɐ/ (EP)
/e/ or /ɛ/	pega /ɛ/ mover /e/	/e/ (BP)	pegar	/i/ (BP)	move
		/ɨ/ (EP)		/ɨ/ (EP)
/o/ or /ɔ/	mimosa /ɔ/ pôde /o/	/o/ (BP)	poder	/u/	mimos
		/u/ (EP)

With a few exceptions mentioned in the previous sections, the vowels /a/ and /ɐ/ occur in complementary distribution when stressed, the latter before nasal consonants followed by a vowel, and the former elsewhere.

In Brazilian Portuguese, the general pattern is that the stressed vowels /a, ɐ/, /e, ɛ/, /o, ɔ/ neutralize to /a/, /e/, /o/, respectively, in unstressed syllables, as is common in Romance languages. In final unstressed syllables, however, they are raised to /ɐ/, /i/, /u/. In casual BP, /e, ɛ/, /o, ɔ/ may be raised to /i/, /u/ on any unstressed syllable.^[4]

European Portuguese has taken this process one step further, raising /a, ɐ/, /e, ɛ/, /o, ɔ/ to /ɐ/, /ɨ/, /u/ in all unstressed syllables. The vowels /ɐ/ and /ɨ/ are also more centralized than their Brazilian counterparts. The three unstressed vowels /ɐ, ɨ, u/ are reduced and often voiceless, and in some cases elided in fast speech.

There are some exceptions to the rules above. For example, /i/ occurs instead of unstressed /e/ or /ɨ/, before another vowel in hiatus (teatro, reúne, peão). Also, /a/, /ɛ/ or /ɔ/ appear in some unstressed syllables, in EP. And there is some dialectal variation in the unstressed sounds: the northern accents of BP have low vowels in unstressed syllables, /ɛ, ɔ/, instead of the high vowels /e, o/. However, the Brazilian media tend to prefer the southern pronunciation. In any event, the general paradigm is a useful guide for pronunciation and spelling.

Nasal vowels, vowels that belong to falling diphthongs, and the high vowels /i/ and /u/, are not affected by this process, nor is the vowel /o/ when written as the digraph ou.

[edit] Vowel alternation

The stressed low vowels /a, ɛ, ɔ/ contrast with the stressed high vowels /ɐ, e, o/ in several kinds of grammatically meaningful alternation:

• Between the base form of a noun or adjective and its inflected forms: ovo /o/ "egg", ovos /ɔ/ "eggs"; novo /o/, nova /ɔ/, novos /ɔ/, novas /ɔ/ "new" (masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, feminine plural);
• Between some nouns or adjectives and related verb forms: adj. seco /e/ "dry", v. seco /ɛ/ "I dry"; n. gosto /o/ "taste", v. gosto /ɔ/ "I like";
• In regular verbs, the stressed vowel is normally low /a, ɛ, ɔ/, but high /ɐ, e, o/ before the nasal consonants /m/, /n/, /ɲ/ (the high vowels are also nasalized, in BP);
• Some stem-changing verbs alternate stressed high vowels with stressed low vowels in the present tense, according to a regular pattern: cedo, cedes, cede, cedem /e-ɛ-ɛ-ɛ/; movo, moves, move, movem /o-ɔ-ɔ-ɔ/ (present indicative); ceda, cedas, ceda, cedam /e/; mova, movas, mova, movam /o/ (present subjunctive). (There is another class of stem-changing verbs which alternate /i, u/ with /ɛ, ɔ/ according to the same scheme);
• In central Portugal, the 1st. person plural of verbs of the 1st. conjugation (with infinitives in -ar) has the stressed vowel /ɐ/ in the present indicative, but /a/ in the preterite, cf. pensamos "we think" with pensámos "we thought". In BP, the stressed vowel is /ɐ̃/ in both, so they are written without accent mark.

There are also pairs of unrelated words that differ in the height of these vowels, such as besta /e/ "beast" and besta /ɛ/ "crossbow", or este /e/ "this one" and este /ɛ/ "east". Since most polysyllabic homographs of this sort can be distinguished from context, the orthography does not differentiate them.

In EP, there are several minimal pairs in which a clitic containing the vowel /ɐ/ contrasts with a monosyllabic stressed word containing /a/: da vs. dá, mas vs. más, a vs. à /a/, etc. In BP, however, these words are all pronounced with /a/.

[edit] Epenthesis

In BP, an epenthetic vowel [i] is sometimes inserted between consonants, to break up consonant clusters that are not native to Portuguese, in learned words. For example, psicologia "psychology" is pronounced [pisikoloˈʒiɐ] (the letter p is not silent, as it is in English), and adverso "adverse" is pronounced [adʒiˈvɛɾsu]. In northern Portugal, an epenthetic [ɨ] may be used instead, [pɨsikuluˈʒiɐ], [ɐðɨˈβɛɾsu], but in southern Portugal there is often no epenthesis, [psikuluˈʒiɐ], [ɐdˈvɛɾsu].

[edit] Further notes on the oral vowels

• Some words with /ɛ ɔ/ in EP have /e o/ in BP. This happens when those vowels are stressed before the nasal consonants /m/, /n/, followed by another vowel, in which case both types of vowel may occur in European Portuguese, but Brazilian Portuguese only allows high vowels. This can affect spelling: cf. EP tónico, BP tônico "tonic".
• In BP, stressed vowels have nasal allophones, [ɐ̃], [ẽ], etc. (see below) before one of the nasal consonants /m/, /n/, /ɲ/, followed by another vowel. In EP, nasalization is nearly absent in this environment.
• Some BP speakers also diphthongize stressed vowels to [ai̯], [ɛi̯], [ei̯], etc. (except /i/), before a sibilant at the end of a syllable (written s, x, or z). For instance, Jesus [ʒeˈzui̯s] "Jesus", faz [fai̯s] "he does", dez [dɛi̯s] "ten". This has led to the use of meia (meaning "meia dúzia", or "half a dozen") for seis [sei̯s] "six" when making enumerations, to avoid any confusion with três [tɾei̯s] "three" on the telephone.^[5]
• In central Portugal, including Lisbon, stressed /e/ is pronounced as [ɐ] or [ɐi] when it comes before a palatal consonant /ʎ/, /ɲ/ or a palato-alveolar /ʃ/, /ʒ/, followed by another vowel.

[edit] Oral diphthongs

Diphthongs are not considered independent phonemes in Portuguese, but knowing them can help with spelling and pronunciation. Only falling diphthongs are listed below. Although rising diphthongs are frequent in the language as well, especially those composed of semivowel /i/ or semivowel /u/ followed by another vowel, they can be analysed as hiatuses^{[citation needed]}.

Diphthong	Usual spelling	Example	Meaning	Notes and variants
/ai/	ai, ái	pai	"father"	Allophone [ɐi] in central and southern Portugal, when unstressed before another vowel. In BP, it may be realized as [a] in unstressed syllables.[6]
/ei/	ei, êi	bateis	"you beat"	There are very few minimal pairs for /ei/ and /ɛi/, all of which in oxytone words. Both diphthongs are replaced with [ɐi] in central Portugal. In BP, they may be realized as [e] in unstressed syllables.[6]
/ɛi/	éi	batéis	"boats"
/oi/	oi	sois	"you are"	There are very few minimal pairs for /oi/ and /ɔi/, all of which in oxytone words.
/ɔi/	ói	sóis	"suns"
/ui/	ui	fui	"I went"	Usually stressed.
/au/	au, áu	mau	"bad"	Allophone [ɐu] in Portugal, found, for instance, in the contractions ao and aos, but otherwise rare.
/eu/	eu, êu	seu	"his"	There are very few minimal pairs for /eu/ and /ɛu/, all of which in oxytone words.
/ɛu/	éu	céu	"sky"
/iu/	iu	viu	"he saw"	Usually stressed.
/ou/	ou	ouro	"gold"	Merges with /o/ for many speakers. In BP, realized as [o] in unstressed syllables.[6]

The characteristic pronunciation of /l/ as [u̯] at the end of syllables in Brazilian Portuguese has created new diphthongs: [ou̯] (polvo, "octopus"), [ɔu̯] (sol, "sun"), [uu̯] (sul, "south"), although this semivowel [u̯] is best analysed as an allophone of the consonant /l/.

[edit] Nasal diphthongs

Diphthong	Usual spelling	Example	Meaning	Notes and variants
/ɐ̃ĩ/	ãe	mãe	"mother"	The diphthong /ẽĩ/ merges with /ɐ̃ĩ/ in central Portugal. They have no minimal pairs. In BP, /ẽĩ/ may be realized as [ẽ] in unstressed syllables.[6] The double diphthong /ɐ̃ĩɐ̃ĩ/ is found only in the verb forms têm and vêm (third person plural, present indicative of the verbs ter and vir), or in derived verb forms such as contêm, retêm, in central Portugal. In other dialects, it merges with /ẽĩ/. The two have few minimal pairs.
/ẽĩ/	em, ém, en, én	tem, parabéns	"he has", "congratulations"
/ɐ̃ĩɐ̃ĩ/	êm	têm	"they have"
/õĩ/	õe	põe	"he lays"
/õĩẽĩ/	õem	põem	"they lay"	Found only in the verb form põem (third person plural, present indicative, of the verb pôr), or in derived verb forms such as supõem, compõem, etc. Replaced with /õĩɐ̃ĩ/ in central Portugal. Some speakers pronounce /õĩẽĩ/ as /õẽĩ/.
/ũĩ/	ui	muito	"very"	This diphthong is found only in the six words ruim (in some dialects), muito, muita, muitos, muitas, and mui.
/ɐ̃ũ/	ão, am	vão, andam	"vain" (m), "they walk"

Nasal diphthongs occur mostly at the end of words (or followed by a final sibilant), and in a few compounds.

[edit] Sandhi

When two words belonging to the same phrase are pronounced together, or two morphemes are joined in a word, the last sound in the first may be affected by the first sound of the next (sandhi), either coalescing with it, or becoming shorter (a semivowel), or being deleted. This affects especially the sibilant consonants /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and the unstressed final vowels /ɐ/, /i, ɨ/, /u/.

[edit] Consonants

As was mentioned above, the dialects of Portuguese can be divided into two groups, according to whether syllable-final sibilants are pronounced as alveolar /s/, /z/, or as postalveolar consonants /ʃ/, /ʒ/. At the end of words, the default pronunciation for a sibilant is voiceless, /s, ʃ/, but in connected speech the sibilant is treated as though it were within a word (assimilation):

• If the next word begins with a voiceless consonant, the final sibilant remains voiceless /s, ʃ/; bons tempos [bõs ˈtẽpus] or [bõʃ ˈtẽpuʃ] "good times".
• If the next word begins with a voiced consonant, the final sibilant becomes voiced as well /z, ʒ/; bons dias [bõz ˈdʒiɐs] or [bõʒ ˈdiɐʃ] "good day".
• If the next word begins with a vowel, the final sibilant is treated as intervocalic, and pronounced /z/; bons amigos [bõz aˈmigus] or [bõz ɐˈmiguʃ] "good friends".

When two identical sibilants appear in sequence within a word, they reduce to a single consonant. For example, nascer, desço, excesso, exsudar are pronounced with [s] by speakers who use alveolar sibilants at the end of syllables, and disjuntor is pronounced with [ʒ] by speakers who use postalveolars. But if the two sibilants are different they are pronounced separately. Thus, the former speakers will pronounce the last example with [zʒ], and the latter speakers will pronounce the first examples with [ʃs] (although in relaxed pronunciation the first sibilant in each pair may be dropped). This applies also to words that are pronounced together in connected speech:

• sibilant + /s/, e.g. as sopas: either [s] or [ʃs];
• sibilant + /z/, e.g. as zonas: either [z] or [ʒz];
• sibilant + /ʃ/, e.g. as chaves: either [sʃ] or [ʃ];
• sibilant + /ʒ/, e.g. os genes: either [zʒ] or [ʒ].

[edit] Vowels

Normally, only the three vowels /ɐ/, /i/ (in BP) or /ɨ/ (in EP), and /u/ occur in unstressed final position. If the next word begins with a similar vowel, they merge with it in connected speech, producing a single vowel, possibly long (crasis). Here, "similar" means that nasalization can be disregarded, and that the two central vowels /a, ɐ/ can be identified with each other. Thus,

• /a, ɐ/ + /a, ɐ/ → [a(ː)]; toda a noite [ˈtoda(ː) ˈnoi̯tʃi] or [ˈtoda(ː) ˈnoi̯tɨ] "all night", nessa altura [ˈnɛs au̯ˈtuɾɐ] or [ˈnɛs aɫˈtuɾɐ] "at that point".
• /a, ɐ/ + /ɐ̃/ → [ã(ː)] (note that this low nasal vowel appears only in this situation); a antiga "the ancient one" and à antiga "in the ancient way", both pronounced [ã(ː)ˈtʃigɐ] or [ã(ː)ˈtigɐ].
• /i/ + /i, ĩ/ → [i(ː), ĩ(ː)]; de idade [dʒi(ː)ˈdadʒi] or [di(ː)ˈdadɨ] "aged".
• /ɨ/ + /ɨ/ → [ɨ]; fila de espera [ˈfilɐ dɨʃˈpɛɾɐ] "waiting line" (EP only).
• /u/ + /u, ũ/ → [u(ː), ũ(ː)]; todo o dia [ˈtodu(ː) ˈdʒiɐ] or [ˈtodu(ː) ˈdiɐ] "all day".

If the next word begins with a dissimilar vowel, then /i/ and /u/ become approximants in Brazilian Portuguese (synaeresis):

• /i/ + V → [jV]; durante o curso [duˈɾɐ̃tʃj u ˈkuɾsu] "during the course", mais que um [mai̯s kj ũ] "more than one".
• /u/ + V → [wV]; todo este tempo [ˈtodw ˈestʃi ˈtẽpu] "all this time" do objeto [dw obiˈʒɛtu] "of the object".

In careful speech and in with certain function words, or in some phrase stress conditions (see Mateus and d'Andrade, for details), European Portuguese has a similar process:

• /ɨ/ + V → [jV]; se a vires [sj ɐ ˈviɾɨʃ] "if you see her", mais que um [mai̯ʃ kj ũ] "more than one".
• /u/ + V → [wV]; todo este tempo [ˈtodw ˈeʃtɨ ˈtẽpu] "all this time", do objecto [dw ɔbˈʒɛtu] "of the object".

But in other prosodic conditions, and in relaxed pronunciation, EP simply drops final unstressed /ɨ/ and /u/ (elision):

• /ɨ/ + V → [V]; durante o curso [duˈɾɐ̃t u ˈkuɾsu] "during the course", este inquilino [ˈeʃt ĩkɨˈlinu] "this tenant".
• /u/ + V → [V]; todo este tempo [tod ˈeʃtɨ ˈtẽpu] "all this time", disto há muito [diʃt a ˈmũi̯tu] "there's a lot of this".

Unlike French, for example, Portuguese does not indicate most of these sound changes explicitly in its orthography.

[edit] Stress

Primary stress may fall on any of the three final syllables of a word, but mostly on the last two. There is a partial correlation between the position of the stress and the final vowel; for example, the final syllable is usually stressed when it contains a nasal phoneme, a diphthong, or a close vowel. The orthography of Portuguese takes advantage of this correlation to minimize the number of diacritics.

Because of the phonetic changes that often affect unstressed vowels, pure lexical stress is less common in Portuguese than in related languages, but there is still a significant number of examples of it:

dúvida /ˈduvidɐ/ "doubt" (noun) vs. duvida /duˈvidɐ/ "he doubts"

falaram /faˈlaɾɐ̃ũ/ "they spoke" vs. falarão /falaˈɾɐ̃ũ/ "they will speak" (Brazilian pronunciation)

ouve /ˈovi/ "he hears" vs. ouvi /oˈvi/ "I heard" (Brazilian pronunciation)

túnel /ˈtunɛl/ "tunnel" vs. tonel /tuˈnɛl/ "wine cask" (European pronunciation)

[edit] Prosody

Tone is not lexically significant in Portuguese, but phrase- and sentence-level tone are important. There are of six dynamic tone patterns that affect entire phrases, which indicate the mood and intention of the speaker such as implication, emphasis, reservation, etc. As in most Romance languages, interrogation is expressed mainly by sharply raising the tone at the end of the sentence.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• Instituto Camões — A Pronúncia do Português Europeu
• International Phonetic Association (1999) Handbook of the International Phonetic Association ISBN 0-521-63751-1
• Mateus, Maria Helena & d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000) The Phonology of Portuguese ISBN 0-19-823581-X
• Major, Roy C. (1992), "Stress and Rhythm in Brazilian Portuguese", in Koike, Dale April & Macedo, Donaldo P, Romance Linguistics: The Portuguese Context, Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, ISBN 0897892976
• Vázquez Cuesta, Mendes da Luz, (1987) Gramática portuguesa, 3rd. ed. ISBN 84-249-1117-2

[edit] See also

• Differences between Spanish and Portuguese
• History of Portuguese
• Portuguese orthography, for further information on spelling
• Portuguese dialects
• Portuguese alphabet

[edit] External links

• Omniglot's page on Portuguese Includes a recording of the phonemes and diphthongs (Brazilian Portuguese).
• The pronunciation of the Portuguese of Portugal
• Phoneme summary, with samples

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See also	Geographic distribution of Portuguese • Portuguese phonology • Portuguese vocabulary

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