Re: Idiolect Sound Change, or Broader Usage? n# > m#

On 10/18/05, Patrick Littell <puchitao@...> wrote:
>
> Someone who speaks Portuguese might be able to comment.  Consider the
> alternation "homem" ~ "homens", in which the word-final /n/ in *homen
> becomes [m]  (I dunno whether synchronically or diachronically.)
>
Well, I do speak Portuguese. :-) As correctly pointed out by Thomas
Wier, the <m> at the end of a word is an orthographic convention to
indicate that the preceding vowel is nasalized. It is not pronounced.
In Brazil, the most usual pronunciation for "homem" would be
['o~me~j~]. I believe this is the most common in Portugal as well. The
same holds for the plural form "homens". The <n> is not pronounced. It
is changed from <m> to <n> because of a rule on the standard
orthography that says that <m> can only precede <p> and <b>

In my dialect (Northeastern Brazilian), even nasals on the end of
syllables that are not word-final tend not to be pronounced. For
example, in "canto", "corner", which I pronounce ['kãtu]

João Ricardo de Mendonça