Nasal epenthesis in preverbal accusative clitic pronouns. A variationist study of present-day dialectal European Portuguese

Abstract

The paper investigates nasal epenthesis in vowel-initial preverbal 3rd person accusative pronouns in modern dialectal European Portuguese (EP). The study is underpinned by the data retrieved from the 'verbatim transcription' section of CORDIAL-SIN, a dialectal corpus of contemporary EP. Speakers' individual attitudes towards onset insertion are analyzed in the fifteen localities where variation is found. Four grammars (prosody-syntax mappings) are singled out, depending on whether the alveolar nasal is extended on preverbal clitic pronouns only or is found in other monosyllabic clitic words (definite articles and demonstrative pronouns) as well. Analogical extensions are demonstrated to be instrumental in inducing speakers to add the onset. Moreover, the analysis points to the unsteadiness in the realization of proclisis triggers. Besides surfacing as a nasal diphthong, their last syllable frequently ends in a monophthong, its vowel quality gets altered or its vocalic nucleus denasalizes. Finally, the historical profile of this external sandhi process is approached. The change is argued to have spread from grammatically and communicatively unmarked contexts, close to orality. Rather than positing a continuous transmission of nasal epenthesis across generations, emphasis is placed on the consistency with which preverbal clitic pronouns were treated in various periods and in different communicative circumstances.