Frequency and distribution of irregular plurals in the Corpus Brasileiro

Abstract

This paper addresses the frequency and distribution of Brazilian Portuguese irregular plurals, within the scope of the word, in a descriptive approach. The data come from the Corpus Brasileiro and are divided into two samples: (i) pluralized nouns ending, in spelling, with vowel+is (eg papéis ‘papers’), vowel+us (eg chapéus ‘hats’), and is (eg funis ‘funnels’), and (ii) those ending with ões (eg vilões ‘villains’), ãos (eg irmãos ‘brothers’), and ães (eg cães ‘dogs’). The phonological and lexical-morphological variables analyzed – number of syllables, stress, phonological context, morphological affiliation and lexical frequency – allowed to define the main contexts for the minority alternants of each sample, in opposition to the prevalent ones, vowel+is and ões, respectively.