COMPLEX ATTACK IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE

The goal of this paper is to discuss the Brazilian Portuguese's complex onsets in the perspective of Optimality Theory (Prince e Smolensky, 1993). Based on the sonority scale of Clements (1990), this article shows that there must be a minimum difference in sonority between members of a syllable onset fixed by the constraint MINDISTSON (Minimal Distance in Sonority) and in Portuguese this difference is two points. While this constraint is violated there are the epenthesis which site is determined by SYLLCON. In rising sonority clusters the epenthesis is internal, but in falling and flat sonority clusters it is peripheral.