O problema das proparoxítonas: a perda da vogal postônica

Abstract

This research intends to register and identify the linguistic behavior of a common phenomenon that occurs in Brazilian Portuguese: the deletion of postonic segments in proparoxiton words, carried out particularly by speakers from Minas Gerais, what was observed through the project named Esboço de um Atlas Linguístico de Minas Gerais. Based on Variation Theory and sociolinguistics research, the main aim of this work was to establish the hierarchy of phonetic contexts that constrains the deletion of one or more segments and to determinate the extralinguistic elements (gender, age, education, region) that are or not related to this change, demonstrating that Portuguese system exhibits a clear proparoxiton tendency and that this tendency has its origin in Vulgar Latin . Therefore, we observed that speakers from Minas Gerais, in a process of linguistic economy, change proparoxiton words in paroxiton words, what represents a reduction of proparoxiton words in its register.