Templates silábicos no Português do Príncipe: processos em coda e ‘prevalência’ de sílabas CV

This article discuss syllabification in Portuguese of Principe (PP), variety of Portuguese spoken in Santo Antonio, in Sao Tome and Principe. We will focus on coda. We present initially syllable templates in PP, indicating which segments are licensed in syllable constituents. After that, we survey some phonological processes implemented in coda. Based on a spontaneous speech corpus, we verified that coda constituent, in PP, can be filled with multiple phonetic realizations of a rhotic /r/, a sibilant /S/, a lateral /l/ or even a subspecified nasal /N/, similar to other Portuguese varieties such as Brazilian and European Portuguese. Phonological processes in coda domain and with /r/, /S/ and /l/ as targets, were also observed: deletion, velarization, vocalization and posteriorization. These phenomena, in PP, corroborate a hierarchical conception for syllable structure in PP, and indicate two grammatical and paradoxical trajectories: the prevalence of CV syllables fostered by segmental deletions and lenition, suggesting closed syllables adaptation into open syllables, and the emergence of complex structures, promoted by /S/ resyllabification.