This study focuses on the analysis of variation at the phonological level, specifically the variable realization of palatalization of dental stops before the high vowel /i/ and vowel nasalization in the speech of bilingual speakers of Uruguayan Portuguese (UP) in the city of Rivera, Uruguay. The data were collected in participant-observation and sociolinguistic interviews with fifty-four local UP speakers conducted by the researcher in the summers of 2006 and 2007. The study examines linguistic and extralinguistic factors influencing phonological variation.

Variable rule analyses using GoldVarb X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte & Smith 2005) revealed that palatalization of dental stops is conditioned by linguistic and social factors. I implemented a trend methodology to compare apparent-time data from two studies at different points in time, 1995 and 2007. However, the hypothesized increase in the use of this variant over time among younger speakers is not supported in this study. Cross-sectional evidence indicates that palatalization of dental stops has stabilized at the speech community level. Results also indicate that palatalization of dental stops is a sociolinguistic marker, that is, sensitive to both linguistic and social context factors carrying both social interpretation and evaluation (Labov 1972).

Vowel nasalization is a linguistic variable constrained mainly by morphophonological and sociophonetic factors. Phonological processes interact with affixation in inflectional and derivational morphology in the process of vowel nasalization. Results show that functional category of the word and preceding phonological environment play a significant role in the distribution of nasal variation in contemporary UP in Rivera.