| Abstract: | This study aims to verify the acquisition, by Brazilian Portuguese speakers, of final consonant clusters in English verbs containing the ¡§-ed¡¨ morpheme. The analysis, which was carried out under the framework of Optimality Theory, showed that the acquisition of the target forms implies a double task. Learners have to demote constraints so as to reach a ranking which accounts for the emergence of complex codas. Besides, learners must also abandon an inappropriate underlying representation /ƒ¹ƒÔ/, originated from orthography, and acquire the accurate input form (/ƒÔ/). In this regard, our analysis has shown that constraint demotion alone might not lead to the production of complex codas when consonant sequences are not shown explicitly in orthography. |
