A epêntese vocálica medial em PB e na aquisição de inglês como LE: uma análise morfofonológica

Abstract

In this paper, we present an analysis of the recurrence of the epenthetic vowel found in word-medial clusters both in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) (e.g. [I] in mag[I]ma) and in English learnt by Brazilians (e.g. [I] in mag[I]net). Based on the statement by Collischonn (2002) that the frequency of epenthesis found after BP prefixes such as sub- seems to be higher than the frequency of epenthesis found in medial-word clusters of nonprefixed words, we investigated the role of prefixes in the production of epenthetic vowels in BP and in English. According to the results we obtained from prefix transparency tests and statistical analyses, we conclude that prefixes play an important role in vowel epenthesis in BP and that epenthesis in English seems to be a result of language transfer from the learner’s L1 to the learner’s interlanguage.