O problema da subdivisão da variedade dialetal madeirense: estudo dialetométrico da variação lexical

Despite constituting one of the most idiosyncratic varieties of European Portuguese, the dialects of Madeira and Porto Santo still lack a comprehensive characterization. This paper proposes a first classification of these dialects using a dialectometrical analysis of lexicon collected at the relevant enquiry locales of the Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Portugal and Galicia. Results show that: each island is not a primary dialectal entity per se; the region’s main dialectal contrast is established by central-eastern Madeira versus western Madeira and Porto Santo; the latter’s inclusion in the western Madeira group suggests a strong dialectal unity of the whole region.