Forms of address from the Ibero-Romance perspective

Lopes, Célia; Marcotulio, Leonardo; Oliveira, Thiago. Forms of address from the Ibero-Romance perspective. In: Martin Hummel & Célia Regina dos Santos Lopes (eds.), Address in Portuguese and Spanish. Studies in diachrony and diachronic reconstruction, Berlin / Boston (Walter de Gruyter) 2020., 2020

The objective of this chapter is to map how the new (sub)systems of second person singular address in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) became organized, examining how address forms in subject position correlate with forms in the other positions (accusative, dative, oblique, genitive). We analyze samples of personal letters written by Brazilians in the 19th and 20th centuries from two regions of the country (Southeast and Northeast). In subject position, the results evidence a gradual loss in use of the pronoun tu 'you' to the benefit of the new form você 'you', starting in the first half of the 20th century. In the other morphosyntactic contexts, we found a very irregular distribution of the innovative form você.

Address in Portuguese and Spanish Studies in Diachrony and Diachronic Reconstruction, 2020

This chapter presents a quantitative analysis of the use of Portuguese second person singular (2SG) address pronouns tu and você in correlation with second person verbal complements (te, a ti, prep. + ti, você, a você, para você, prep. + você, lhe, o/a, zero (Ø)). We analyse the diversity of 2SG verbal complements in accusative, dative and oblique structures in letters written by individuals from the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, between 1860 and 1989. The results show that oblique verbal complementation functions as a syntactic context that tends to favor the use of você (Rumeu & Oliveira 2016), whereas the dative and accusative functions are seen as survival contexts for the clitic pronominal te.

Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 2021

The system of pronouns of address in Portuguese is known for its complexity. Although many investigations (mainly case studies) on Brazilian Portuguese have been carried out to this respect, there is lack of in-depth studies about the European variety. In this article, we aim to provide the history of the system of pronouns of address in European Portuguese throughout the 20th century, by analyzing dialect data pertaining to three sociolinguistic corpora. The results highlight that the 20th century meant a time with profound changes in Portugal's society, since it represents a stage in which European Portuguese established a new paradigm that favoured standard responses and pragmatic solidarity. However, this variety is still inclined to pragmatic distance, for the data reveal that it has also come up with new strategies to maintain deference as the unmarked politeness strategy.

Address in Portuguese and Spanish, 2020

This chapter presents a study of the forms of address found in databases of letters written in São Paulo during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The data are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively, considering aspects such as the gender of those involved in the epistolary relationship, date, exclusive or mixed use of a form, relationship between sender and recipient, as well as pragmatics. In the 18th century correspondence, there is widespread use of vossa mercê (lit. 'Your Mercy') precisely in the region which later on will be characterized by the exclusive use of você. In the 19th and 20th century letters, você shows up with greater frequency than tu. The results show a higher frequency of você in the period studied here, foreshadowing the subsystem of address forms currently used in the state of São Paulo.

Address in Portuguese and Spanish, 2020

This chapter aims to provide an overview regarding variation and change between tu and você pronouns in six samples of personal letters from the PHPB-SC, covering the period between 1870s and 1990s. Considering samples examined in this study, some tendencies may be signalized: (i) in the 19th century tu is largely used, while in the 20th century variation between tu and você is observed; (ii) tu is mostly correlated to null subjects, and você is mostly correlated to explicit subjects; (iii) tu seems to be associated to personal issues and você seems to be associated to professional issues; (iv) tu is used most in Greater Florianópolis mesoregion, while você is the most productive pronoun in the Planalto Serrano, Vale do Itajaí and Nourthern Santa Catarina mesoregions, and these preferences appears to have some relation to the colonization of these cities. These results are discussed based on the field of historical sociolinguistics and may contribute to the second person singular pronouns description concerning written Portuguese in Brazil and in Santa Catarina specifically.

Address in Portuguese and Spanish: diachrony and diachronic reconstruction, 2020

South-western Peninsular Spanish (Andalusian) and European Portuguese rely on a single plural pronoun to address a group of people (ustedes/ vocês respectively). However, this can induce two different agreements in the verb, in the object pronouns and in the possessive: (i) second person plural (2PL) and (ii) third person plural (3PL). This chapter studies the linguistic spread of these agreement patterns during the last hundred years as well as the theoretical aspects that led to this variation in use, and it also confirms the Sprachbund theory that has been recently put forward regarding western Andalusian and southern European Portuguese, since both varieties share a series of linguistic behaviours and developments in phonetics, lexicon and morpho-syntax.

Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 2023

The system of pronouns of address in European Portuguese is made up of several pronouns and strategies, some of which vary depending on sociolinguistic, geographical and pragmatic factors. Despite its complexity, there is lack of empirical research that accounts for the actuality and validity of the paradigm depicted in the grammars. In order to compensate for this lack of information, I aim to set out the system of pronouns of address in the Azores, an area that has up to this point not been subject to investigation. Thanks to specific fieldwork, I will establish the type of politeness that currently predominates in this archipelago and the particularities that are not attested elsewhere in Portugal.

Estudos de Lingüística Galega, 2022

The system of forms and pronouns of address in European Portuguese presents great variation throughout the entire country. Although a tripartite and a bipartite paradigm exists in singular and plural, respectively, the dialect reality provides a more complex system that depends on geo and sociolinguistic factors. Despite the most recent studies on this phenomenon, there is little information about the actual usage of pronouns of address in the archipelagos. In this paper, I aim to pinpoint the current paradigm of pronouns of address in Madeira, by also establishing its geolinguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic and grammatical constraints, thanks to a quantitative corpus stemming from specific fieldwork. The main results show the elimination of vós as plural, the extension of vocês and its 3pl agreement pattern, as well as various pragmatic changes in progress regarding the conception of family and the spread of pragmatic solidarity.

Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 2024

is known for the complexity of its second-person pronouns system. Despite this fact, there are not many works that deal with its evolution, since most analyses focus on case studies. In this article, I aim to pinpoint the diachrony of the second-person pronominal system of European Portuguese through the analysis of a corpus consisting of letters that cover the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The data will be compared to the available information regarding the previous centuries as well as the present. The results show that the European variety has journeyed through three very specific periods in its history, triggering both loss of inflection and person disagreements. Moreover, it has always maintained the spectrum of distance or power as the unmarked form of politeness-in contrast to the fashions attested in other languages and elsewhere in Europe.