scholarly journals Comparing anaphora resolution in early and late Brazilian Portuguese-European Portuguese bidialectal bilinguals

Author(s):  
Tammer Castro ◽  
Jason Rothman ◽  
Marit Westergaard

The present study examines anaphora resolution in two groups of speakers exposed to Brazilian and European Portuguese (BP and EP, respectively), considering the different null subject distribution in these languages. Our research question is whether late BP-EP bilinguals (age of EP onset: 29.1) and heritage BP speakers raised in Portugal (age of EP onset 5.6), tested in both dialects, will pattern like the native controls or display some effects of EP in their native BP or vice-versa. This is an interesting question in light of the Interface Hypothesis, which claims that external interfaces should be subject to general bilingualism effects irrespective of language pairing and age (Sorace, 2011). The results show that age has an effect, as the heritage speakers do not perform like the late learners, and that the high degree of typological proximity between the two languages could hinder bidialectal acquisition.

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. e021021
Author(s):  
Maria Eugenia Lamoglia Duarte ◽  
Juliana Esposito Marins

The aim of this article is twofold. In the first place, we present evidence that the syntactic change towards overt pronominal subjects observed in Brazilian Portuguese is not a stable phenomenon; rather, our empirical results allow to follow the parametric change in course and to identify the progressive loss of crucial properties related to ‘consistent’ null subject languages. The contrastive analysis with European Portuguese shows the stronger and the weaker structural contexts in this continuous battle towards the implementation of overt pronouns. Personal sentences (with definite and ‘indefinite’ – arbitrary and generic – subjects, usually referred as “impersonal”) are analyzed in more detail than those we consider impersonal sentences, which include a variety of structures, with climate, existential and unaccusative verbs, . They are, however, shown to have been deeply affected by the re-setting of the value of the Null Subject Parameter. Then, we will briefly compare Brazilian Portuguese with Finnish null subjects to conclude that Brazilian Portuguese does not seem to fit the group of the so called ‘partial’ null subject languages, which seem to exhibit null subjects in very restricted contexts, have a lexical expletive in apparent variation with null and generic subjects as well as in impersonal sentences, when it seems to be merged to avoid a verb-initial sentence. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-366
Author(s):  
Víctor Lara ◽  
Ana Guilherme

Abstract The employment of você in current European Portuguese is not clear. Although Brazilian Portuguese has specialised it as an informal pronoun in certain geographical areas within the country, the European variety presents its use in contexts which seem to be contradictory: informal address, formal address and pejorative address. Due to the lack of an in-depth study on the evolution of this form, we have collected data from three different corpora that reflect the real usage of você throughout the twentieth century, since it is from the nineteenth century that você started specialising as an informal pronoun. The results show a decreasing use of this pronoun and a certain degree of polyvalence due to a gradual marginalisation experienced for over one hundred years. As a consequence, the strategy of null subject plus 3sg has emerged as the unmarked politeness strategy in current European Portuguese.


Author(s):  
Norma Schifano

Chapter 3 extends the investigation of verb placement to other Romance varieties, in order to expand the macro- and micro-typologies identified in Chapter 2. It starts with a description of the placement of the present indicative verb across a selection of varieties of French, Romanian, Spanish, Catalan, European Portuguese, and Brazilian Portuguese. Following the methodology of Chapter 2, the remainder of the discussion is devoted to the description of cases of microvariation attested across the varieties above, which emerge once a selection of structural and interpretative distinctions are considered, such as lexical and auxiliary verbs, ‘have’ and ‘be’ auxiliaries, finite and non-finite verbs (cf. participle and infinitive), as well as a selection of modally, temporally, and aspectually marked forms (e.g. subjunctive, conditional, past, future, imperfect).


1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-400
Author(s):  
Mark Davies

This study is the first comprehensive, data-based examination of subject raising in Portuguese, and is based on 4500+ tokens in more than 26,500,000 words of text from both the written and spoken registers of Brazilian and European Portuguese. We have suggested that there are important differences in raising between the spoken and written registers, which are related to presumably universal production strategies for the two registers. Evidence suggests that morphological factors such as subject-verb agreement play an important role in determining whether raising occurs with first, second, and third person subjects. In terms of differences between the European and Brazilian dialects, we find that split agreement (eles parece saberem) and obligatory coreference {me parece ver um fantasma) are both more common in European Portuguese. Finally, these last two facts, along with a number of related phenomena, suggest that there are important differences in the underlying clause structure of European and Brazilian Portuguese, which can further be extended to include other languages such as Spanish.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Valentim ◽  
Matilde Gonçalves

No estudo aqui proposto sobre a intensificação em português europeu, pretende-se identificar e descrever algumas configurações linguísticas em comentários em linha, que, em articulação com as características discursivo-textuais, convergem para a caracterização deste género. Nesta perspetiva, a intensificação é abordada enquanto fenómeno discursivo-textual, com um enfoque na relevância que as formas e construções linguísticas têm enquanto marcadoras de valores traduzíveis num grau elevado de uma propriedade ou de um efeito de sentido a par com a forte manifestação do sujeito, uma característica do género comentário. This study focuses on intensification in European Portuguese. Its aim is to identify and describe some linguistic configurations in online comments, which, in conjunction with the discursive-textual characteristics, converge for the characterization of this textual genre. In this perspective, the intensification is approached here as a discursive-textual phenomenon, with a focus on the relevance that linguistic forms and constructions have as markers of values of a high degree of a property or of an effect of meaning along with the strong manifestation of the subject, which is, in itself, a characteristic of the commentary genre. La présente étude sur l'intensification en portugais européen porte sur l'identification et la description de certaines configurations linguistiques dans les commentaires en ligne, qui, en conjonction avec les caractéristiques discursives-textuelles, convergent vers la caractérisation de cette pratique textuelle. Dans cette perspective, l'intensification est abordée comme un phénomène discursif-textuel, avec un accent sur la pertinence que les formes et constructions linguistiques ont comme marqueurs de valeurs traduisibles à un degré élevé d'une propriété ou d'un effet de sens avec le fort manifestation du sujet, caractéristique du genre du commentaire. Le choix pour l'analyse d'un corpus de commentaires se doit au cadre de la recherche menée au sein du Groupe Gramática & Texto, qui, dans la première phase du projet, a réuni un corpus de commentaires en ligne, G&T.Comenta, d'où provient le corpus ici analysé. En el estudio que aquí se propone sobre la intensificación en portugués europeo, se pretende identificar y describir algunas configuraciones lingüísticas en los comentarios online, que, en conjunto con las características discursivo-textuales, convergen en la caracterización de este género. En esta perspectiva, la intensificación se aborda como un fenómeno discursivo-textual, con un enfoque en la relevancia que tienen las formas y construcciones lingüísticas como marcadores de valores traducibles en un alto grado de una propiedad o efecto de significado junto con la fuerte manifestación del sujeto, una característica del género del comentario. La elección para el análisis de un corpus de comentarios se debe al encuadre de este estudio en el ámbito de la investigación realizada dentro del Grupo Gramática & Texto, que, en la primera fase del proyecto, reunió un corpus de comentarios online, Comentarios de G&T., De donde se tomó el corpus aquí analizado.


Author(s):  
Acrisio Pires

This paper analyzes preverbal overt subjects, comparing Brazilian Portuguese to (other) null-subject languages, especially within Romance. It explores syntactic and semantic properties, including resumption, ellipsis, quantifiers and scope, variable binding, ordering restrictions, pronominal distinctions, minimality violations, bare nouns and definiteness. It concludes that preverbal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese can be realized both in argumental positions (Specifier of the Inflectional or Tense Phrase) and non-argumental positions (Topic Phrase specifiers), with the possibility that both types of positions are filled by the subject in the same clause, incorporating properties that have been argued not to be found together in other languages.


Author(s):  
Silvia Perez-Cortes

Abstract For more than a decade, research on heritage speakers’ (HSs’) mood selection has documented a high degree of variability in their interpretation and use of mood morphology in variable contexts. Most of the previous literature, however, has focused on late-acquired alternations, and often limited analyses to one form (i.e., subjunctive), making it difficult to draw conclusions about HSs’ knowledge of mood distinctions. This study intends to fill this gap by examining Spanish HSs’ (n = 76) and Spanish-dominant controls’ (n = 25) interpretation and use of an early acquired mood alternation, where the presence of indicative or subjunctive conveys the report of an assertion or a command. Results from two experimental tasks reveal that, even though HSs’ performance tends to differ from that of controls’—especially at lower levels of proficiency—the nature and extent of their divergences suggests the need to embrace a more nuanced analysis of HSs’ linguistic outcomes when examining modal contrasts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-467
Author(s):  
Katrin Schmitz ◽  
Anna-Lena Scherger

AbstractIn this contribution, we investigate the impact of language-internal and language-external factors on the parametrized grammatical domain of (null) subjects in adult Italian heritage speakers (HS, n=16). Based on empirical evidence from correlation analyses comparing these speakers´ spontaneous speech to monolingual Italians (n=10), we determine the kind and extent of variation in monolingual and bilingual adult end-state grammars. We will show that there is indeed a significant variation in the null subject production of the HS related to the factors age and education which is, however, constrained to contexts of 1st grammatical person. This observation cannot be taken to represent incomplete acquisition but rather a discourse and possibly situation-related competent behaviour. We propose that end-state HS grammars are characterized by a full grammatical and pragmatic competence, combined with a larger variation of language-externally determined preferences than monolinguals show. This does not call the native end-state competence of HS into question but opens the door for potential changes in future bilingual generations. We further discuss the implications for language acquisition theory and language change in terms of stability.


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