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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1106

Part of Session 163: Variation and change in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Other abstracts in this session)

Maintenance of the morphological past perfect in written Brazilian Portuguese

Authors: Martins, Kellen Cozine; Paiva, Maria da Conceição de
Submitted by: Martins, Kellen Cozine (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

The Variationist Sociolinguistics assumes that variability is inherent in human language and can be explained by the correlation between linguistic variants and social and structural factors. Based on the theoretical-methodological presuppositions of Sociolinguistics, this paper focuses on the variation between two forms to indicate that an action in the past finished before another action in the past (Past perfect): the canonical morphological form with the morpheme -ra (as in falara) and the periphrastic form (as in tinha falado or havia falado). In Brazilian Portuguese, this kind of variation can be attested exclusively in written language since the morphological variant is unusual in spoken language with a temporal sense and is about to disappear from de linguistic system. We analyse the resistance contexts of this variant in a sample of texts published in different newspapers in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The analysis shows the relevance of two variables: the presence of an adverbial in the sentence and the type of newspaper. The morphological form of past perfect is favored in sentences with time adverbials, mainly the adverb antes. This tendency can be interpreted as an attempt to ensure the temporal relation between two related state-of-affairs in the past. Concerning the type of newspaper, we show the maintenance of the canonical variant in less popular newspapers like O Globo and Jornal do Brasil. On the contrary, newspapers like O Povo and Extra, that are more popular, tend to use the periphrastic form that is closer to speech patterns. In view of the results, we may conclude that the users are sensitive to some variable process that characterizes the sociolinguistics diversity of Rio de Janeiro city.