The lateral in coda in different varieties of Portuguese: A review study

Abstract

The current paper presents a systematic literature review about the variation in the lateral consonant /l/ in syllabic coda position in different varieties of Portuguese — Brazilian, European, and African (São Tomé, Príncipe, and Mozambique). Through searching in Google Scholar, fourteen studies were selected, all of which were analyzed considering Variationist Sociolinguistics’ theoretical foundations, with special focus on the role of linguistic contact in the conditioning of the variants. The results suggest that Brazilian Portuguese is in the late stage of change towards the semivocalization, especially in capitals and urban regions, while communities colonized by Europeans or bordering Spanish-speaking regions tend to preserve the consonantal features. In European Portuguese, the velarization stands out, but there is evidence of semivocalization in certain cases. In African varieties, there are different trajectories: in São Tomé and Príncipe, the contact with Portuguese lexicon-based creoles favors the deletion of the segment, while in Mozambique, a country marked by contact with Bantu languages, the alveolar variant prevails. The current study discusses methodological limitations relative to the sample heterogeneity of the revised papers and points to the need of more research on the topic, especially about African varieties under-investigated, in order to deepen the comprehension of the phenomenon in the Lusophone context.