In this article, a prosodic domain located between the prosodic word and the phonological phrase is argued for (the prosodic word group – PWG). This constituent groups the members of several types of compound-like expressions, but does not play a special part in the prosodic organization of clitics, and thus is argued to be (partially) distinct from the old clitic group (Hayes 1989; Nespor and Vogel 1986). The PWG is shown to play a role in the phonology of compound-like expressions in a great number of languages, belonging to different linguistic families. Evidence is multifarious, coming from segmental, tonal, duration and prominence related phenomena. Crucially, evidence is also offered against an analysis resorting to recursive prosodic words – e.g., prominence patterns at the levels of the Prosodic Word (PW) and PWG may be reversed; phonological phenomena distinguishing the two domains show a difference in kind and not just in strength (Ladd 1996/2008; Frota 2000).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Article On the correlates of rhythmic distinctions: The European/Brazilian Portuguese case was published on October 19, 2001 in the journal Probus (volume 13, issue 2).

OBJECTIVE To review studies on the readability of package leaflets of medicinal products for human use.METHODS We conducted a systematic literature review between 2008 and 2013 using the keywords “Readability and Package Leaflet” and “Readability and Package Insert” in the academic search engine Biblioteca do Conhecimento Online,comprising different bibliographic resources/databases. The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses criteria were applied to prepare the draft of the report. Quantitative and qualitative original studies were included. Opinion or review studies not written in English, Portuguese, Italian, French, or Spanish were excluded.RESULTS We identified 202 studies, of which 180 were excluded and 22 were enrolled [two enrolling healthcare professionals, 10 enrolling other type of participants (including patients), three focused on adverse reactions, and 7 descriptive studies]. The package leaflets presented various readability problems, such as complex and difficult to understand texts, small font size, or few illustrations. The main methods to assess the readability of the package leaflet were usability tests or legibility formulae. Limitations with these methods included reduced number of participants; lack of readability formulas specifically validated for specific languages (e.g., Portuguese); and absence of an assessment on patients literacy, health knowledge, cognitive skills, levels of satisfaction, and opinions.CONCLUSIONS Overall, the package leaflets presented various readability problems. In this review, some methodological limitations were identified, including the participation of a limited number of patients and healthcare professionals, the absence of prior assessments of participant literacy, humor or sense of satisfaction, or the predominance of studies not based on role-plays about the use of medicines. These limitations should be avoided in future studies and be considered when interpreting the results.

It has been generally thought that Northern varieties of European Portuguese (EP) are more conservative than Standard (Lisbon) EP, and show some similarity with Spanish. However, the intonation of the different varieties of EP has not attracted the attention of phonologists or phoneticians until very recently. This work has two main goals: (i) to characterise the differences between Northern and Standard EP by offering a first account of the intonational system of Northern dialects; (ii) to add to the understanding of intonational variation within Ibero-Romance languages and language varieties. It is shown that the two varieties resort to different nuclear accents in declaratives, wh-questions and yes-no questions. Realisational, phonotactic and semantic differences are also found. Both the facts of pitch accent distribution and the intonational phrasing choices displayed suggest that Standard EP has innovated from Northern EP and Spanish by reducing phrase-internal pitch accents and producing larger major prosodic phrases