Vowel Reduction and Empty Nuclei in European Portugese: An Analysis of the Syllable Structure

The purpose of this article is to outline Portuguese syllable structure. The shape of the syllable in European Portuguese (the standard southern and central dialect) is suggested to be identical in slow and fast speech (Mateus – d’Andrade 2002). This view is challenged in this article by an analysis of Vowel Deletion and Vowel Nasalisation. It is argued that within the skeletal theory of the syllable, it is impossible to maintain the same syllabic structure for slow speech and fast speech.