Analysis of an acoustic event in European Portuguese stop-rhotic clusters and implications for phonological acquisition

This study focuses on an acoustic event in European Portuguese (EP) complex onsets that occurs between stop and rhotic consonants. Although complex onsets are typically considered a late-acquired structure in EP, findings on their developmental sequence remain inconsistent. The present work aims to characterise this acoustic event and discuss implications for the phonological acquisition of complex onsets in EP. Acoustic data were collected from 10 adult EP speakers producing trisyllabic paroxytones with a medial rhotic in complex onset position. First and second formant frequencies and duration were analysed. Results showed that the nuclear vowel significantly influenced both the duration and formant frequency values of the event, which tended to occupy a centralised position in the vowel space. These findings provide empirical support for the existence and relevance of the acoustic event, offering new insights into the processing of complex onsets in EP, highlighting its relevance for clinical phonetics.