Papers by Maria Marta Pereira Scherre
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, 2006
Revista Linguíʃtica, 2007
Já é do conhecimento de todos os sociolingaistas brasileiros que a concordância verbal de número ... more Já é do conhecimento de todos os sociolingaistas brasileiros que a concordância verbal de número no português falado no Brasil é sistematicamente variável. É, também, de conhecimento geral que, no entendimento desta variação, entram em jogo variáveis lingüísticas de ...
DELTA: Documentação e Estudos em Linguística Teórica e Aplicada, 1993
O termo "paralelismo formal" designa a tendencia de formas semelhantes co-ocorrerem no ... more O termo "paralelismo formal" designa a tendencia de formas semelhantes co-ocorrerem no uso linguistico real. Demonstramos que o efeito paralelismo e muito forte no uso variavel da concordância verbal no Portugues Popular Brasileiro. No nivel clausal, mostramos que sujeitos que possuem o ultimo elemento marcavel formalmente marcado para plural tendem a favorecer a marcacao plural no verbo, favorecendo a ocorrencia de uma marca formal plural em um verbo sucessivo com o mesmo sujeito, desde que nao haja interrupcao significativa. Da mesma forma, um verbo plural nao marcado desfavorece a marcacao plural em um verbo subsequente. Sugerimos que o efeito paralelismo e de fato um universal linguistico e salientamos que ele contradiz o principio da economia linguistica, pois favorece a repeticao em ambientes proximos, onde o vinculo entre elementos plurais e obvio e desestimula a repeticao aonde serviria para vincular de outra forma. elementos nao marcados, mas relacionados.
Scripta, Mar 9, 2006
Mudança sem mudança: a concordância de número no português brasileiro Resumo Neste artigo, reflet... more Mudança sem mudança: a concordância de número no português brasileiro Resumo Neste artigo, refletimos sobre o que as variáveis anos de escolarização e saliência fônica nos revelam a respeito de processos de mudança lingüística no português brasileiro falado no Rio de Janeiro com relação a fenômenos estigmatizados fortemente estruturados, como a concordância de número. Para tanto, apresentamos análises comparativas com base em três amostras: (1) uma amostra aleatória de 64 falantes gravados no início da década de 1980; (2) uma amostra aleatória de 32 falantes gravados no final da década de 1990; (3) um grupo não aleatório de 16 falantes da amostra de 1980, recontactados em 1999-2000, após um intervalo médio de 18 anos. Reafirmamos que o melhor modelo para dar conta de mudança em um fenômeno estigmatizado é de fluxos e contrafluxos, que apresenta a configuração de grupos e de indivíduos transitando por diversas vias sociais lingüisticamente estruturadas. Palavras-chave: Concordância de número; Variação lingüística; Saliência fônica; Anos de escolarização; Mudança lingüística.
Em nossa opiniao, na epoca a lingua portuguesa era Transferido de Portugal para o Brasil, transpo... more Em nossa opiniao, na epoca a lingua portuguesa era Transferido de Portugal para o Brasil, transportava uma deriva de seculos, parcialmente herdada das linguas latim e anterior, que, em seu novo contexto, interagia com uma serie de fatores que podem ter reforcado aspectos da deriva orignal. Desde o inicio, um dos fatores mais fortes no Brasil foi a identificacao, na forma da "lingua geral", baseada em Tupi, e do codigo adquirido conhecido como "lingua de preto" em Portugal, usado com indios no novo mundo. Ambos pre-datam a presenca portuguesa no Brasil, provavelmente remontando a varios seculos. Mais tarde, os pidgins de base africana podem ter entrado em jogo devido a predominância de pessoas de determinadas regioes da Africa no norte e sul do Brasil, embora nao haja evidencias que apontem para a existencia de um pidgin ou crioulo de base portuguesa, peculiar aos descendentes de Africanos trazidos para o Brasil sob escravidao. Em qualquer caso, o efeito desse pidgin em particular no portugues nao seria distinguivel daquele dos outros pidgins nao portugueses. Ao longo da historia da lingua portuguesa no Brasil, o contato com populacoes de diversas origens linguisticas fez com que a lingua se desenvolvesse diferentemente do que em Portugal, mas a fonte final das mudancas que ocorreram no Brasil pode ser rastreada ate Portugal.
Language Variation and Change, Mar 1, 1996
Languages, 2024
This study shows that the incorporation of the first-person plural pronoun a gente has not
only r... more This study shows that the incorporation of the first-person plural pronoun a gente has not
only reached the southernmost tip of the Brazilian territory, but has crossed the border and entered
Uruguayan Portuguese, or varieties of Portuguese spoken in northern Uruguay by Portuguese–
Spanish bilinguals. This finding is based on the quantification of the a gente/nós variable in sociolinguistic interviews carried out in two border communities: Aceguá, Brazil, and Aceguá, Uruguay.
The analysis of interviews recorded on each side of the border yielded a total of 1000 tokens that
were submitted to a multivariate analysis. Following the premises of comparative sociolinguistics,
we compared the distribution of the variable on both sides of the border and found that although Uruguayans used a gente less often than Brazilians, this innovation, preferred by young speakers, is incorporated in both dialects, following similar linguistic paths. These results show that Uruguayan Portuguese has incorporated the pronominal a gente in its grammar in a clear sign of convergence towards Brazilian Portuguese and divergence from Spanish, despite the coexistence with Spanish that categorically uses nosotros as the first-person plural pronoun and eserves the cognate la gente for its purely lexical meaning ‘the people’
Diadorim, Dec 30, 2018
Sob a perspectiva da Sociolinguística Variacionista, analisamos três construções com a primeira p... more Sob a perspectiva da Sociolinguística Variacionista, analisamos três construções com a primeira pessoa plural: padrão antigo -nós com -mos (nós moramos); não padrão -nós sem -mos (nós mora); padrão emergente -a gente sem -mos (a gente morou/a gente mora). Os dados analisados são de quatro amostras do português brasileiro -Santa Leopoldina-ES, Baixada Cuiabana -MT, Goiás e Vitória-ES -e foram analisados em oposições binárias e ternárias, por programas estatísticos da série Varbrul. Os resultados indicam que a restrição mais importante é o grau de facilidade da percepção da diferença entre formas com e sem o morfema -mos, conhecida como saliência fônica: quanto maior a saliência fônica, mais a possibilidade de usar a forma com -mos. Uma vez que as formas do pretérito tendem a ocupar altos níveis de saliência, há distribuição parcialmente sobreposta entre tempo e saliência. Para a terceira pessoa plural, pesquisas anteriores mostram que a saliência é um preditor melhor do que tempo. Para a primeira pessoa plural, a distribuição sobreposta tende a conduzir, em alguns contextos estruturais e sociais, a uma reanálise de tal forma que o morfema -mos é usado preferencialmente para marcar pretérito perfeito. Isto resolve a ambiguidade entre presente e pretérito nos casos padrão de nós com -mos (nós moramos, preferencialmente pretérito) e não padrão nós sem -mos (nós mora, presente). Como parte de um fluxo de padronização, a construção nominal a gente, do substantivo latino singular gens gentis 'tribo', é inserida no sistema pronominal como primeira pessoa do plural. Isto cria um padrão emergente, a gente sem -mos. Estas questões nos levaram a (1) propor uma hierarquia da saliência levemente modificada, denominada de hierarquia da proeminência, (2) discutir análises binárias e ternárias e (3) concluir que processos diacrônicos de séculos passados emergem da análise sincrônica de dados hoje disponíveis.
In Brazilian Portuguese there are three common ways to express first person plural: Traditional s... more In Brazilian Portuguese there are three common ways to express first person plural: Traditional standard 'nós' with concord ('nós falamos' 'we speak''); Nonstandard 'nós' without concord ('nós fala' 'we speak'); Emerging standard 'a gente' with concord ('a gente fala' 'we speak'). In this paper, variation involving these forms is analyzed as two binary variables, concord with 'nós' and alternation between 'nós' and 'a gente.' This variation is vigorous and ongoing: concord is a stereotype; alternation is a marker. We analyze 1517 tokens from 40 speakers in Vitória, the capital of the State of Espírito Santo, and 1757 tokens from 32 speakers in the rural area of Santa Leopoldina, a small town of the same State. In terms over overall ternary distribution, the samples differ in only 4.6 percentage points with respect to nós with concord; 20.4 percentage points with respect to 'nós' without concord; and 15.7 percentage points with respect to 'a gente' with concord. The relative weights of age group in separate binary analyses show different directions in the cases of 'nós' with concord vs. 'nós' without concord, and 'a gente' with concord vs. 'nós' with or without concord in the two communities. In Vitória, the youngest age group favors 'nós' with concord and 'a gente' with concord, suggesting change in the urban community toward increased frequency of concord in line with other urban centers in Brazil. In Santa Leopoldina, we find decreasing use of 'nós' with concord in three age groups with an uptick in concord by the 7-14 year group. Furthermore, in Santa Leopoldina, the intermediate group of 26-49 favors of 'a gente' with concord, suggesting age grading. This use is more frequently by speakers who have greater contact with Vitória, such as in agricultural trade. It is reinforced by the effect of the interviewer in Santa Leopoldina: a gente with concord is favored if the interviewer is an outsider. Thus, rural and urban communities are on the same plane as far as overall distribution of 'nós' with concord is concerned, but exhibit different trajectories of ongoing progress, with distinct reflexes in the community: urban progress is communitywide change, while rural progress show age grading for a gente with concord, and change in progress is slower for 'nós' with concord. In both cases, direction is toward the dominant urban norm of agreeing forms. Nonetheless, even though 'a gente' with concord, an urban feature preferred in cities, penetrates the rural community, speakers still exhibit more 'nós' without concord, a local loyalty feature.
ALFA: Revista de Linguística, 2007
Language Variation and Change, Oct 1, 2014
Variable agreement in Brazilian Portuguese is subject to social stigma, under strongly negative e... more Variable agreement in Brazilian Portuguese is subject to social stigma, under strongly negative evaluation, brought to the public's attention in 2011 in a heated nationwide sociolinguistic debate triggered by TV Globo, the principal national television network. In order to isolate objective factors underlying this debate, we examine the variable 'years of schooling' in a trend study of Rio de Janeiro speech from 1980 and 2000. Analysis of relative weights and their corresponding ranges reveals that distance between effects of each level of education has increased over time. Polarization of the education variable in 1980 was moderate, while in 2000 polarization becomes extreme in an increasingly uneven social distribution of marked forms. The results reveal massive exacerbation of sociolinguistic apartheid, showing that nothing has changed in human interaction with respect to language despite many years of language studies. For this reason, we suggest that our sociolinguistic studies ought to trigger legal action, with creation of laws against linguistic prejudice, modeled on laws against other forms of prejudice, so that society can profit from results of sociolinguistic research in a humanistic and emancipatory way.
Language Variation and Change, Mar 1, 2001
Linguistic parallelism (i.e., the tendency of similar forms to occur together within a stretch of... more Linguistic parallelism (i.e., the tendency of similar forms to occur together within a stretch of discourse) has been shown to be very strong in many linguistic phenomena and in a vast number of languages. Examining the role of phrase-level parallelism on noun phrase number agreement, this article demonstrates that Puerto Rican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese exhibit more similarities than differences with regard to this constraint. A detailed analysis of Brazilian Portuguese data is presented, and the results are compared with those found by Poplack (1980a) for Puerto Rican Spanish. Guy's (1981a) and Labov's (1994) hypothesis about missing zeroes in Brazilian Portuguese is also discussed. In conclusion, it is claimed that the phrase-level parallelism effect on noun phrase number agreement is embedded in a universal principle of linguistic use: parallel processing. According to Poplack (1980a:55), " Puerto Rican Spanish (s) is variably subject to two weakening processes, aspiration and deletion, so that a phrase such as las cosas bonitas 'the beautiful things' can also be realized [lah 'kosah bo'nitah] or [la 'kosa bo'nita]." Therefore, in Puerto Rican Spanish, a plural noun phrase can exhibit all overt plural markers, some overt and some zero plural markers, or all zero plural markers without losing the semantic plural information. In order to account for the Puerto Rican Spanish data, Poplack (1980a:63-64) claimed that it is necessary to consider preceding markers across linear position as well as other important constraints, such as grammatical category, following phonological segment, and stress. Poplack's own analysis took into account each token with respect to its position in the noun phrase and to the position of preceding plural markers; her results are presented in Table 1 (her Table 3.4B). Poplack (1980a:64; emphasis added) asserted that 1 When preceding S, лS, SS, and Sл are treated as a single category, they appear to have the same disfavoring effect on deletion (between .40 and .43).
Language Variation and Change, Mar 1, 1991
ABSTRACTSubject/verb agreement and subject/predicate adjective agreement in spoken Brazilian Port... more ABSTRACTSubject/verb agreement and subject/predicate adjective agreement in spoken Brazilian Portuguese are subject to a parallel processing effect, such that marking leads to further marking and lack of marking leads to further lack of marking. For example, semantically plural verb tokens preceded by marked plural subjects in the same clause or other marked verb tokens with the same subject in the preceding discourse are more likely to be explicitly marked for plural than similar tokens preceded by unmarked subjects or verbs. This phenomenon is in direct contradiction to the principle of linguistic economy, since marking tends to occur precisely in those contexts in which it is most highly redundant and could therefore be discarded with no loss of information. Furthermore, the marking of successive plural tokens cannot be considered statistically independent events, since the outcome of previous marking decisions effects future marking. We propose that the parallel processing principle is a universal of language use.
Language Variation and Change, Mar 1, 2013
De Gruyter eBooks, Dec 31, 1998
SCHERRE, MMP & NARO, AJ Sobre a concordância de número no português falado do Brasil.... more SCHERRE, MMP & NARO, AJ Sobre a concordância de número no português falado do Brasil. In Ruffino, Giovanni (org.) Dialettologia, geolinguistica, sociolinguistica.(Atti del XXI Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza) Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici ...
letrônica, Dec 27, 2017
Exceto onde especificado diferentemente, a matéria publicada neste periódico é licenciada sob for... more Exceto onde especificado diferentemente, a matéria publicada neste periódico é licenciada sob forma de uma licença Creative Commons -Atribuição 4.
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Papers by Maria Marta Pereira Scherre
only reached the southernmost tip of the Brazilian territory, but has crossed the border and entered
Uruguayan Portuguese, or varieties of Portuguese spoken in northern Uruguay by Portuguese–
Spanish bilinguals. This finding is based on the quantification of the a gente/nós variable in sociolinguistic interviews carried out in two border communities: Aceguá, Brazil, and Aceguá, Uruguay.
The analysis of interviews recorded on each side of the border yielded a total of 1000 tokens that
were submitted to a multivariate analysis. Following the premises of comparative sociolinguistics,
we compared the distribution of the variable on both sides of the border and found that although Uruguayans used a gente less often than Brazilians, this innovation, preferred by young speakers, is incorporated in both dialects, following similar linguistic paths. These results show that Uruguayan Portuguese has incorporated the pronominal a gente in its grammar in a clear sign of convergence towards Brazilian Portuguese and divergence from Spanish, despite the coexistence with Spanish that categorically uses nosotros as the first-person plural pronoun and eserves the cognate la gente for its purely lexical meaning ‘the people’
only reached the southernmost tip of the Brazilian territory, but has crossed the border and entered
Uruguayan Portuguese, or varieties of Portuguese spoken in northern Uruguay by Portuguese–
Spanish bilinguals. This finding is based on the quantification of the a gente/nós variable in sociolinguistic interviews carried out in two border communities: Aceguá, Brazil, and Aceguá, Uruguay.
The analysis of interviews recorded on each side of the border yielded a total of 1000 tokens that
were submitted to a multivariate analysis. Following the premises of comparative sociolinguistics,
we compared the distribution of the variable on both sides of the border and found that although Uruguayans used a gente less often than Brazilians, this innovation, preferred by young speakers, is incorporated in both dialects, following similar linguistic paths. These results show that Uruguayan Portuguese has incorporated the pronominal a gente in its grammar in a clear sign of convergence towards Brazilian Portuguese and divergence from Spanish, despite the coexistence with Spanish that categorically uses nosotros as the first-person plural pronoun and eserves the cognate la gente for its purely lexical meaning ‘the people’