On the origins of Portuguese para form variation: Acoustic evidence from reading style

This study explores the origins of Brazilian Portuguese para 'to, for' form variation using sociophonetic analytic techniques to test various properties of the unreduced para variant. While the pra variant was suggested to have originated from an intertonic syncope process, the finding in this study that unreduced para is produced with lexical stress calls such an origin into question. Since unreduced para o tends to be produced lacking the second /a/, para + Article's low reduction rate to pra in previous studies may be a consequence of its participation in a word-boundary reduction process. Reduction of para to pra therefore appears to be a case of special reduction that emerged for para to reduce a syllable in other contexts.