1 / 85

GENERAL PRINCIPLES GOVERNING VARIATION IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: THE SCALE OF PROMINENCE

NEW WAYS OF ANALYZING VARIATION 45 Pachan̓tsut | Spreading Roots | Simon Fraser University and University of Victoria Segal Room (1400-1430) November 3–6, 2016, 11:45-12:45. GENERAL PRINCIPLES GOVERNING VARIATION IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: THE SCALE OF PROMINENCE

rscott
Télécharger la présentation

GENERAL PRINCIPLES GOVERNING VARIATION IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: THE SCALE OF PROMINENCE

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. NEW WAYS OF ANALYZING VARIATION 45Pachan̓tsut | Spreading Roots | Simon Fraser University and University of VictoriaSegal Room (1400-1430)November 3–6, 2016, 11:45-12:45 GENERAL PRINCIPLES GOVERNING VARIATION IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: THE SCALE OF PROMINENCE Anthony J. Naro – Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro rionaro@gmail.com Marta Scherre – Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo and Universidade de Brasília mscherre@gmail.com

  2. CONTENTS Introduction • Subject/verb concord in Brazilian Portuguese in the third-person plural • Subject/verb concord in Brazilian Portuguese in the first-person plural: analysis of sample from the 1980's • Subject/verb concord in Brazilian Portuguese in the first-person plural: comparative analysis of data from the 21st century 3.1.Samples, analyzed variants and examples 3.2 Salience and Tense ambiguity: binary approach 3.3 Salience and Tense Ambiguity: ternary distribution of nós-with-mos, nós-without-mos, a-gente-without-mos – two shifts in diachronic perspective Final remarks References

  3. 1. subject/verb concord in Brazilian Portuguese in the third-person plural The initial studies in the 1970's and further research in the 1980's and 2000's (Naro& Lemle, 1976; Naro, 1981; Naro & Scherre, 1996; 2000; 2013; Scherre & Naro, 2010; 2014) concluded that: • some oppositional verb forms show more frequent use of concord than others • when there is less difference in phonetic realization of plural with respect to singular, use of non-agreeing forms is more frequent • when there is more difference in phonetic realization of plural with respect to singular, use of non-agreeing forms is less frequent

  4. Phonic Salience Hierarchy: third-person plural (Naro, 1981: 75) Level 1 - unstressed opposition: • [-i/~-i] come/comem 'eat'; parte/partem 'leave‘ b. [-a/~-u] fala/falam 'speak' c. [-0/~-i] faz/fazem 'do' Level 2 - stressed opposition: a. [-a/~-aw] dá/dão 'give' b. [-éw/-ér~u, -íw/-ír~u, -óy/-ór~u] comeu/comeram 'eat'; partiu/partiram 'left‘; foi/foram `went´ c. [-ó/-ár~u] falou/falaram 'spoke' [-0/-ér~u, -í/-ér~u] trouxe/trouxeram 'brought' fez/fizeram'did' unique case: é/são 'is/are'

  5. Table 1. Phonic Salience Hierarchy -- 70´s Rio de Janeiro: semi-literate speakers (Naro, 1981: 77)

  6. Salience or Tense? • no preterit forms on the lower level of the hierarchy (1a, 1b, 1c) • preterit is concentrated on the upper level of the hierarchy (2a, 2b, 2c) • led to doubts as to whether tense or salience was the more relevant category as an independent variable • alternative view: since the preterit is the predominant form of narrative foreground, and the imperfect and present are more typical of narrative background, greater attention to foregrounded sequences is the basis of greater use of concord in the preterit and lesser attention to backgrounded sequences is the basis of less use of concord in the present and imperfect.

  7. The answer for subject/verb concord in third person plural • very detailed coding of both salience and tense/mood (Table 2a below). • results for cross-classification of salience and tense/mood (Table 2a) • salience is selected as statistically significant by VARBRUL, irrespective of whether tense/mood is also present in the analysis • tense/mood is selected in analyses in which salience is not included; when salience is included tense/mood is not selected • conclusion: salience, not tense, controls variable concord in the third-person plural • the general results for verbal concord in the third-person plural are confirmed twenty years later in a new sample from the first decade of the 21st century.

  8. Table 2a. Results for third-person plural subject/verb concord in the 1980 sample from Rio de Janeiro: phonic salience and tense/mood as one variable (Scherre & Naro, 2010:167) Indicative mood: Subjunctive mood: present preterit present and imperfect and imperfect Salience 1a 181/ 418=43% 0.14 21/45=47% 0.17 1b 1122/1706=66% 0.36 28/42=67% 0.37 1c 91/ 271=71% 0.35 2a 584/ 717=82% 0.65 2b 209/258=81% 0.67 2c 475/ 553=86% 0.74 568/634=90% 0.79

  9. General conclusions for third-person plural concord • widespread frequent variation in Brazil, much less frequent variation in Portugal • historical origins in Europe, amplified in Brazil to a strong flow toward no marking • recent counterflow toward increased standard marking • salience is the controlling variable; apparent effect of tense is a consequence of biased distribution of tense with respect to salience Phonic salience hierarchy, a cognitive and perceptual factor, and not tense/mood, a grammatical factor, is, in fact, the feature that governs variable use of concord in the third-person plural.

  10. 2. subject/verb concord in Brazilian Portuguese in the first-person plural For the first-person plural with subject nós 'we', concord is generally categorical in European Portuguese (Rubio, 2012; Araujo, 2012). In Brazilian Portuguese, it is extremely variable depending on several structural and social aspects. Among the relevant social factors, we can mention: years of schooling, age group, sex/gender, position along the rural-urban continuum, and linguistic identity. (cf., for example, Bortoni-Ricardo, 1985; Coelho, 2006; Foeger, 2014; Lucchesi, Baxter & Silva, 2009; Mattos, 2013; Naro, Gӧrski & Fernandes, 1999; Oushiro, 2015; Prandi, 2005; Rodrigues, 2007; Rubio, 2012; Zilles, Maya & Silva, 2000).

  11. The 1980´s: Naro, Gӧrski & Fernandes (1999) There are two first-person plural pronominal forms: nós 'we', derived directly from Latin pronominal nos, and a gente, derived from Latin nominal gens gentis 'tribe' Four variants: 1) nós-with-mos, or nós withconcord(nós falamos‘we speak`or `we spoke`): standard variant 2) nós-without-mos, or nós without concord(nós fala ‘we speak):non-standard variant 3) a gente-without-mos, or a gente with concord (a gente fala ‘we speak’): emergentstandard variant 4) a gente-with-mos, or a gente without concord (a gente falamos ‘we spoke’): non-standard variant

  12. Table 3. Overall frequency of use of -mos inflection with nós and a gente in two age groups: sample of 64 speakers from the lower socioeconomic levels of Rio de Janeiro in the 80's (Naro, Gӧrski & Fernandes,1999:201-202)

  13. Phonic Salience Hierarchy: first-person plural (Adapted from Table 1 of Naro, Gӧrski & Fernandes,1999:203) 1 unstressed in both forms - falava/falávamos ´we used to speak´ 2 stressed in one of the forms – fala/falamos ´we speak` - trouxe/trouxemos ´we brought` 3 stressed in both forms – está/estamos ´we are` - tem/temos ´we have` 4 stressed in both forms, and the singular form has a diphthong - partiu/partimos´we left´ - vai/vamos `we go` - foi/fomos `we went` or `we were` 5 stressed in both form, and the stressed vowel changes – falou/falamos `we spoke`; é/somos ´we are`

  14. Table 4. Relative weights for subject nós-with-mos vs. nós-without-mos: 64 speakers from the lower socioeconomic levels - Rio de Janeiro in the 1980´s (Adapted from Table 2 of Naro, Gӧrski & Fernandes, 1999:205)

  15. Remarks • phonic salience is statistically significant and is chosen by VARBRUL in first place for all four age groups, with both frequencies and relative weights increasing progressively for each of the three levels of salience in each of the age groups • tense is statistically significant only for the two youngest age groups, although the raw frequencies for all four groups exhibit reasonably large differences in frequencies of actual use

  16. Remarks • older two age groups: salience — not tense — is the significant independent variable because salience accounts for more of the overall variation; the effect of tense is a consequence of its distribution with respect to salience • younger two age groups: the tense variable makes its own contribution to the chances of realization of -mos, favoring the presence of -mos in the preterit and disfavoring it for other tenses • the basis for this change is decreased use of -mos in the present; the decrease is more pronounced in less salient verb forms and less pronounced in more salient verb forms

  17. Table 5. Comparison of rate of use of -mos with subject nós in four verb forms: 64 speakers from the lower socioeconomic - Rio de Janeiro in the 1980´s (Adapted from Table 3: Naro, Gӧrski & Fernandes, 1999:207)

  18. Two motivating factors and foreseeing the future 1) In regular verbs of all three conjugations the -mos form is ambiguous between present and preterit: comemos can be ‘we eat' or 'we ate‘. 2) Salience results in concentration of -mos in the preteritin real world language use. "It is possible to foresee a future period in which -mos may come to be categorically preterit and 0 cat­egorically non-preterit in the 1st person plural.“ (Naro, Gӧrski & Fernandes, 1999:210) NOT QUITE RIGHT, at least not yet.

  19. 3. Subject/verb concord in Brazilian Portuguese in the first-person plural:comparative analysis of data from the 21st century The future is here and it is time to see what is happening. We examine four samples from the first decade and the current decade of the 21st century. Time depths of about 20 and 30 years from the research on first-person plural concord of Naro, Gӧrski and Fernandes (1999).

  20. Main references: researchers directly involved Benfica (2016) – Master´s thesis at Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (Ufes) Dettoni (2003) - Doctoral thesis at UnB Foeger (2014) – Master´s thesis at Ufes Mattos (2013) - Doctoral thesis at Universidade de Brasília (UnB) Mendonça (2010) – Master´s thesis at Ufes Naro, Scherre, Foeger & Benfica (2014, in press) – 1st Symposium on Variation in Portuguese – Minho/Portugal Scherre, Naro, Mattos, Foeger & Benfica (2014) – NWAV 43 – Chicago/USA Scherre, Yacovenco & Naro (2015) – III Congresso Internatacional de Linguística Histórica – Santiago de Compostela/Espanha Scherre, Naro, Yacovenco, Mattos, Foeger & Benfica (2015) – NWAV 44 – Toronto/Canada

  21. RECENT OVERVIEWS Mendes, R. B., & Oushiro, L. (2015). Variable number agreement in Brazilian Portuguese: An overview. Language and Linguistic Compass, 9(9), 358-368. Scherre, M. M. P., & Duarte, M. E. L. (2016). Main current processes of morphosyntactic variation. In L. Wetzels, S. Mennuzi & J. Costa (Eds.), The handbook of Portuguese linguistics (pp. 526-544). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

  22. The four samples: the rural-urban continuum

  23. Figure 1. Santa Leopoldina: mountain city in the State of Espírito Santo - Southeastern region Urban area Rural area Available at: https://www.facebook.com/SantaLeopoldinaEs. Accessed September 22, 2014. Source: personal file (Foeger, 2010)

  24. Figure 2. Cuiabá: capital of State ofMato Grosso - Center-Western region Available at: http://mochileiro.tur.br/cuiaba.htm. Accessed September 22, 2014.

  25. Figure 3. Anápolis – State of Goiás, Center-Western region Available at:http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1198995&page=101. Accessed September 22, 2014.

  26. Figure 4. Vitória: capital of State ofEspirito Santo - Southeastern region Available at:http://www.procurandoviagens.com/2012_08_01_archive.html. Accessed September 22, 2014.

  27. Figure 5.Brazil: 5 regions, 26 states and the Federal District Available at: http://www.brasilescola.com/brasil/regioes-brasileiras.htm. Accessed September 22, 2014. In red, the Southeast, with Vitória and Santa Leopoldina, in the State of Espírito Santo In purple, the Center West, with the State of Goiás and Baixada Cuiabana, in the State of Mato Grosso (Regions established by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in accord with physical, human,cultural, social, andeconomiccriteria.)

  28. References on the four samples Benfica, Samine de Almeida. & Scherre, Maria Marta Pereira. (2013). Os “nós” da concordância verbal na fala capixaba. Paper presented at II Congresso Nacional de Estudos Linguísticos, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Oct. 24. Vitória sample Dettoni, Raquel do Valle (2003). A concordância de gênero na anáfora pronominal: variação e mudança linguística no dialeto da Baixada Cuiaba – Mato Grosso. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília. (Baixada Cuiabana sample) Foeger, Camila Candeias. (2014). A primeira pessoa do plural no português falado em Santa Leopoldina (Dissertação de Mestrado em Linguística) – Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo. (Santa Leopoldina sample) Mattos, Shirley Eliany Rocha. (2013). Goiás na primeira pessoa do plural. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidade de Brasília. (Goiás sample) Mendonça, Alexandre Kronemberg de. (2010). Nós e a gente em Vitória: análise sociolinguística da fala capixaba. (Dissertação de Mestrado em Linguística) – Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo. (Vitória sample)

  29. The 21st century research We will focus on three variants: 1) nós-with-mos, or nós withconcord(nós moramos‘we live’/‘lived’; nós vamos`we go´; nós fomos`we went´; nós morávamos‘we used to live’): traditional standard variant 2) nós-without-mos, or nós without concord(nós mora ‘we live’; nós morou ‘we lived’;nós vai `we go´; nós foi ‘we went’; nós morava ‘we used to live’):non-standard variant, heavily stigmatized in urban areas, although widely used in rural areas, without stigmatization. 3) a gente-without-mos, or a gente with concord (a gente mora ‘we live’; a gente vai`we go´; a gente foi `we went´; a gente morava ‘we used to live’): emerging standard variant

  30. Examples: in pink [square brackets], old standard nós-with-mos; in blue (parentheses), nonstandard stigmatized nós-without-mos; in green <angle brackets>, emerging standard a-gente-without-mos .. (nós toma) bastante cuidado, caixa bem tampada, não(deixa) água no quintal, nada. Às vezes, [nós], de vez em quando, [tamo]limpando o terreiro, pra não deixar acumular muita coisa... (...) que <a gente não <pode>...só depender também dos outros, <a gente tem>que tomar providência... Agora... <a gente tem> que fazer a parte da gente e eles faz a parte deles. [Vitória sample, 1-8 years of schooling, male, 26-49 years old] ´(we take) great care, the tank shut tight, don't(let)any water get into the yard, nothing at all. Sometimes, [we], occasionally, [get] to cleaning up the yard, in order to not let things build up … because <wecan't> … just depend on other people, <we have> to do something…Now, <we have> to do our own part and they do theirs'

  31. Examples: in green <angle brackets>, emerging standard a-gente-without-mosin black {curly brackets}, stigmatized and very infrequent a-gente-with-mos. ... <a gente tá> procurando (...) aí lá embaixo <a gente encontrou> um moço... aí ele perguntou... {a gente perguntamos} se ele conhecia o tio, tio zé [Vitória sample, more than 11 years of schooling, female, 15-25years old] ... ' <we are> looking for ... and down there <we found> a person … so he asked … {we asked} if he knew the guy, Uncle Joe'

  32. Analysis of 21st century samples We decided to code tense ambiguity explicitly as an independent variable, on the same footing with phonic salience, in order to compare quantitatively the variable effect of these categories as independent variables. Tense ambiguity exists for some types of opposition and not for others. It is valid for the low salience variation in nósfala/nósfalamos 'we speak‘ because the marked -mosform can mean either present 'we speak' or past 'we spoke'. We refer to this situation as equal tense ambiguity and use the notation +ambig.

  33. Analysis of 21st century samples Tense ambiguity is not valid for the equally low salience variation in nóssabe/nóssabemos 'we know ' because the marked -mos form is unambiguously present. The past is soubemos 'we knew'. We refer to this situation as different tense ambiguity and use the notation -ambig. We reduce salience to two levels. A more detailed analysis is not possible because it would contain many categories with few or no data due to uneven distributions. We thus have four combinations:

  34. Salience and tense ambiguity: four combinations [1] -salience, +ambiguity (low oppositional salience, equal tense ambiguity) (a) fala/falamos 'we speak' as relevant present tense data tokens, without or with -mos, taking into account falamos meaning either 'we speak' or 'we spoke'. (b) preterit tense does not exist in Portuguese in this configuration [2]-salience, -ambiguity (low oppositional salience, different tense ambiguity) (a) sabe/sabemos 'we know' as relevant present tense data tokens, without or with -mos, taking into account sabemos 'we know' versus soubemos 'we knew'. (b) soube/soubemos'we knew' as relevant past tense data tokens without or with -mos, taking into account sabemos 'we know' versus soubemos 'we knew'.

  35. Salience and tense ambiguity: four combinations [3]+salience, +ambiguity (high oppositional salience, equal tense ambiguity) (a) sai/saímos 'we leave' as relevant present tense data tokens, without or with -mos taking into account saímos meaning 'we leave' or 'we left' • falou/falamos 'we spoke' as relevant preterit tense data tokens, without or with -mos, taking into account falamos meaning 'we speak' or 'we spoke‘ [4]+salience, -ambiguity (high oppositional salience, different tense ambiguity) (a) vai/vamos 'we go' as relevant present tense data tokens, without or with -mos, taking into account vamos 'we go' versus fomos 'we went'. (b) foi/fomos 'we went' as relevant preterit tense data tokens, without or with -mos, taking into account vamos 'we go' versus fomos 'we went'.

  36. Remarks It is important to bear in mind that our two binary features with four possible permutations exhibit highly uneven distributions. In the preterit, one of the four permutations (-salience +ambiguity) simply does not exist. In the present, one of the four permutations (+salience +ambiguity: sai/saímos) exhibits very limited numbers of tokens (01 for SL; 03 for BC; 06 for GO; none for VIT). Another permutation (-salience -ambiguity: sabe/sabemos; faz(i)/fazemos) exhibits relatively few data in the present (around 6 - 12% of the data) We compare the effect of salience and tense ambiguity on rate of concord in the four new samples for preterit and present tense, first separately.

  37. Remarks In this discussion we use the terminology of Labov (1969 [2003]:241-243]):  • Rule type How often rule operates • Type I: categorical rule: 100% • Type II: semi-categorical rule: 95-99% • Type III: variable rule: 5-95% Preterit is semi-categorically or categorically marked independently of salience and tense ambiguity in three of our four samples: Santa Leopoldina, Baixada CuiabanaVitória (Tables 6a and 6b below).

  38. Table 6a. Nós-with-mos vs. nós-without-mos in accord salience and tense ambiguity: preterit

  39. Table 6b. Nós-with-mos vs. nós-without-mos in accord salience and tense ambiguity: preterit

  40. Remarks Marking with -mos in the preterit is in the top of the semi-categorical range at 97%-100%, with the exception of Goiás at around 85%. Neither salience nor tense ambiguity appears to have any effect in the preterit in these four samples. In Goiás, lack of concord takes on the function of a marker of local identity (Mattos, 2013:123). As a Goiás speaker put it with disarming sincerity: nós fala errado porque nós qué ... nós é assim ‘we speak wrong because we want to...we are like that’.

  41. Remarks As for the prediction of a "future period in which -mos may come to be categorically preterit “(Naro, Gӧrski & Fernandes, 1999:210), so far we see that preterit is almost categorically marked with -mos. We now consider data with the present tense in order to determine the status of the -mosdesinence in that tense (Tables 7a and 7b in the slides below).

  42. Table 7a. Nós-with-mos vs. nós-without-mos in accord salience and tense ambiguity: present tense

  43. Table 7b. Nós-with-mos vs. nós-without-mos in accord salience and tense ambiguity: present tense

  44. Remarks As far as marking is concerned, +ambig works in the same direction as -sal, reducing use of marking, and -ambig works in the same direction as +sal, increasing use of marking. Both variables contribute to oppositional prominence of variation in the sense that +sal increases prominence of morphological opposition, while -ambig leads to increased prominence of semantic opposition. We set out to determine whether salience or tense is the strongest variable in conditioning of use of concord in the first person plural. Our results show that in the preterit neither tense nor ambiguity has any effect. In the present, VARBRUL chooses salience in one sample, ambiguity in two samples, and no structural variable at all in one sample. Thus, conditioning is not uniform among the four communities. Each sample represents a different stage of the evolution toward standardization.

  45. Remarks With the distribution of data we have in the first-person plural, salience and tense ambiguity are, in fact, not empirically distinguishable in the analytical sense since their skewed distributions make them highly correlated. Rather than viewing ambiguity and salience as rival independent variables, their distribution leads us to view them as two sides of the same coin: salience refers to the cognitive/perceptual distinctiveness of competing forms, while ambiguity refers to their functional roles in distinguishing tenses.

  46. Remarks As for the prediction of a "future period in which -mos may come to be categorically preterit," we see that at the moment, with subject nós, the preterit is semi-categorically marked with -mos, and the present is variably marked with -mos, principally in highly salient and non-ambiguous environments. The foreseen future of -mos as a categorical preterit marker has not yet arrived for our four samples. There has been some progress in that direction compared to the state of affairs in the earlier Rio sample in that the preterit exhibits near categorical marking with -mos. Nonetheless, the present also shows frequent -mos marking in high salience contexts, sometimes even reaching similar frequencies of marking.

  47. The emergent first-person plural form a gente-without-mos We turn now to a gente, a relatively new first-person plural form with nominal origins that, at the present, is fully grammaticalized and competing vigorously with the traditional pronominal form nós, directly derived from the corresponding Latin pronoun. As in the earlier work, typical examples of the forms we will be considering, all with the meaning 'we used to be', are: nós éramos / nós era a gente era

  48. The emergent first-person plural form a gente-without-mos Up to this point we have not been considering the imperfect tense because ambiguity is relevant only to the present and preterit tenses for purposes of subcategorization. The imperfect is, however, important for reaching an understanding of the use of a genteand the whole process of change in the direction of less stigmatized, more standard forms in urban areas.

  49. The emergent first-person plural form a gente-without-mos The opposition between forms with and without -mos in the imperfect is uniformly on the level of extremely low morphological salience, for both regular and irregular verbs of all three conjugations, with stress located two syllables back from the word-final position of the desinence. The imperfect is uniformly -ambig since it is never ambiguous in form with respect to any other tense.

More Related