Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Language belonging to the Ibero-Romance (
Romance languages) branch of Indo-European, the first language of approx. 140 million speakers in Portugal, Madeira, the Azores, and Brazil. Portuguese has fewer dialectal variations than the other Romance languages. The pronunciation and standard written form of Portuguese is based on the language of Lisbon and Coimbra. Historically, Portuguese derives from Galician Portuguese in northern Portugal and in what is now Spanish Galicia (Gallego). The pronunciation in Brazil differs in many ways from that in Portugal.
Characteristics: special characteristics of Portuguese include a number of nasalized vowels (with numerous diphthongs and triphthongs); two /r/ phonemes (dental and uvular); no marking of word boundaries with correspondingly strong tendencies towards assimilation and sandhi. The inflectional morphology includes a synthetically formed past perfect as well as a declinable infinitive.
References
Costa Campos. M.H. and M.F.Xavier. 1991. Sintaxe e semântica do Português. Lisbon.
Holtus, G., M. Metzeltin, and C.Schmitt (eds) 1994. Lexikon der romanistischen Linguistik, vol. 6, 2.130–692. Tübingen.
Mateus, M.H.M. et al. 1990. Fonética, fonologia e morfologia do Português. Lisbon.
Mattoso Câmara, Jr, J. 1972. The Portuguese language, trans. A.J.Naro. Chicago. IL.
Thomas, E.W. 1974. A grammar of spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Nashville, TN.
Vâzquez Cuesta, P. and M.A.Mendes da Luz.
1971. Gramática portuguesa, 3rd edn, 2 vols. Madrid.
History and dialectology
Leite de Vasconcellos. J. 1901. Esquisse d’une dialectologie portugaise. (2nd edn Lisbon, 1970.)
Messner, D. 1990. História do léxico Português. Heidelberg.
Teyssier, P. 1980. Histoire de la langue portugaise. Paris. (Also pub. as Historia da lingua portuguesa. Lisbon. 1982.)
Williams, E.B. 1938. From Latin to Portuguese: historical phonology and morphology of the Portuguese language. Philadelphia, PA. (2nd edn 1962.)
Dictionaries
Almeida Costa, J. and A.Sampaio e Melo. 1952. Dicionário da lingua portuguesa. Lisbon. (6th edn 1984.)
Da Cunha, A.G. 1982. Dicionário etimologico Nova Fronteira da lingua portuguesa. Rio de Janeiro.
De Morais, A. 1949–59. Grande dicionário da lingua portuguesa, 11 vols, 10th edn. Lisbon. (1st edn 1789.)
Bibliography
Dietrich, W. 1980. Bibliografia da língua Portuguesa do Brasil. Tübingen.
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