The Acquisition of Tonic and Pre-Tonic Vowels in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This study presents the acquisition of the tonic and pre-tonic vowels in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) by three children aged from 1;0 to 3;5, assuming the Contrastive Hierarchy Theory (CHT) (Dresher 2003, 2009). We address three issues regarding acquisition within the CHT: variability, phonological processes and restructuring. Results indicate that children may take different paths in acquiring segmental phonology and restructure their built structure if it does not account for the phonological processes found in the language they are exposed to.