Prosodization of clitics in Brazilian Portuguese:

clues from hyposegmentations

Abstract

Clitic elements in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) are predominantly prosodized to the right of their host. In written texts, Elementary School students tend to write clitics next to their host, as ‘puraqui’ (‘por aqui’). These spellings would therefore be motivated by the typical clitic prosodization of BP. However, we find spellings such as ‘tenque’ (‘tem que’), in which the clitic is next to the left of the host, forming an enclitic strutucture. We identified characteristics of this type of hyposegmentation in a sample of texts written over the last four year of the Elementary School. We propose that these hyposegmentations are effects of literacy practices, which prescribe the use of verbal enclisis, such as ‘pegala’ (‘pegá-la’), and simultaneously oral practices in which enclisis occurs, such as ‘tenque’. We argue that the latter hiposegmentations are clues that the direction of clitic prosodization is to the left in certain morphosyntatic structures and rhythmic configuration of utterances.