This paper aims to analyze prosodic strategies of disambiguation of Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth, BP) sentences in the context of syntactic ambiguity and stress clash. Our hypothesis is that the disambiguation of these sentences happens through different prosodic strategies to undo the stress clash. To test this hypothesis, experiments of production and perception were carried out with BP speakers. The results were analyzed in light of the Prosodic Phonology (NESPOR; VOGEL, 1986) and the Intonational Phonology (PIERREHUMBERT, 1980; LADD, 1996, 2008). Our results show that: (i) when there is retraction of the stress, there are clues to the formation of only one phonological phrase and the interpretation is that the second word involved in the clash refers to the immediately preceding word; (ii) on the other hand, when the undoing of the stress clash is done by pauses or the association of a pitch accent with every word involved in the stress clash, there are clues to the formation of two phonological phrases and the interpretation obtained is that the second word on the clash context refers not to the immediately preceding word, but to the other in the sentence.
Stress Clash; Syntax-Phonology Interface; Prosody; Brazilian Portuguese
