G[e]LAT[i]NA AND B[Ɛ]RNAD[Ɛ]TE: ACCOUNTING FOR ADJACENCY IN VOWEL HARMONY IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE

Abstract: This study addresses the issue of vowel harmony in Brazilian Portuguese from the perspective of the Optimality Theory. More specifically, we address the issue of adjacency between vowels which seems to impede vowel harmony of height from taking place (*g[i]lat[i]na), but does not seem to affect vowel harmony of ATR when segments which are not specified for the relevant feature intervene (b[ɛ]rnad[ɛ]te). To account for this difference we propose the re-ordering of the markedness constraints AGREE and NOGAP. Another issue addressed is the optionality of both phenomena which allows non-harmonized outputs. For this, we propose the re-ordering of faithfulness and markedness constraints