Redução vocálica:

This paper aims at describing the phenomenon of non-stressed high back vowel reduction and loss in word-final position in Brazilian Portuguese, when it is pre- ceded by a high front vowel or a palatal glide: tio [??i.?] ~ [??i?] and maio [?ma?? ?] ~ [?ma???]. We suggest that what is traditionally seen as elision or deletion should be understood as the final stage of segmental reorganisation, in which a segment that was formerly present no longer occurs. We also suggest that segmental reor- ganisation is gradient and has an impact to phonological representation. Exemplar Theory is the theoretical framework adopted in this study. We claim that, though the high back vowel is not heard in word-final position, it is characterized by pho- netic detail after segmental reorganisation. Phonetic detail can be experimentally investigated, and in this paper this investigation was carried out through acoustic analysis. This paper provides evidence for the relevance of experimental studies in phonology.