The intonation of Portuguese spoken in Maputo, Mozambique: A case study

This case study of Portuguese as spoken in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, describes the intonation of neutral declarative SVO sentences and neutral yes-no questions using the theory and methodological tools of Prosodic Phonology and Autosegmental-Metrical Intonational Phonology. In neutral declaratives, 1) prosodic phrasing of Subject and Predicate into independent (S)(VO) intonational phrases (IPs) predominated; 2) LH+L* L% and H+L* L% nuclear contours predominated in final IPs, while contours with high H% boundary were most frequent in medial IPs; 3) phrase accents frequently occurred between S and V, between V and O and even within S, separating the nucleus from its complements; and 4) an additional tone was possible in association with the pre-stressed syllables of long (5-syllable), mostly IP-initial, prosodic words. In neutral questions, the nucleus most often featured a rising-falling L+(<¡)H* L% movement. High tonal density was also found, with pitch accents associated with stressed syllables of all PWs in both declaratives and yes-no questions.