The prosodic behavior of monosyllables in Medieval Portuguese through the Cantigas de Santa Maria
Keywords:
monosyllables, prosody, Medieval Portuguese, Cantigas de Santa Maria.Abstract
This paper aims to conduct a study on the prosodic behavior of monosyllables in
Medieval Portuguese. This research is based on an innovative methodology that observes the relation between musical and linguistic prominences and its contributions for data collection regarding the prosodic structure of the language in study. There are in Medieval Portuguese heavy (tonic) monosyllables and light (atonic) monosyllables with diverse syllabic structure. The onset is irrelevant for the syllabic weight. Monosyllables with a consonant in the coda are heavy unless
this consonant represents an inflexion element. Monosyllables with no consonant in the coda are normally light but there are also heavy monosyllables with no consonant in the coda.