Cartas oficiais norte-riograndenses dos séculos XVIII, XIX e XX : constituição e caracterização de um corpus diacrônico

The diachronic studies marked the first decades of the 20th century in Brazilian linguistics, passing by an ostracism period after the 50s. Mainly from the 90s especially with the project, created in 1997, Para a história do português brasileiro (PHPB), which has systemized, in national ambit, the programme related to the area of diachrony the historical studies retake forces and have gradually increased since then. Our work is set in the new scene of Brazilian historical linguistics and it is associated to two research programmes: i) the constitution of a diachronic corpus; ii) the diachrony of text and discourse. As regards the first programme, we made effort to constitute a diachronic corpus of official letters about Rio Grande do Norte, we called cartas oficiais norte-rio-grandenses, written in 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The chosen for bureaucrat letters occurred for they represent a textual category very productive in historical contexts, mostly 18th and 19th centuries, in which the command of writing was the least and also because they bring, almost always explicitly, the information of where, when, for whom and from whom, as remembers Fonseca (2003). The rules for constituting the corpus were based, although not strictly, on the orientation from PHPB. In respect to the second programme, we set up on the ideas of coserian base came from the studies on discourse traditions (TD) (Koch, 1997; Kabatek, 2006) amongst which that the texts are shaped so as to follow their own tradition (Coseriu, 2007), and we turned to Diplomatics (Belloto, 2002) in order to do the characterization of this corpus by the application of concepts from Diplomatics and TD as well as by the presentation of the structures that form those official letters: their textual genres, a kind of TD, with their macrostructures; and some of their formulaic expressions (microstructures), another sort of TD. This stage of characterizing will pay attention, as far as possible, to the dynamic between tradition and innovation that happen in the actualization of those textual structures along the centuries. This work intends to contribute with the researches connected to Historical Linguistics in Rio Grande do Norte, more specifically the ones related to the constitution of diachronic corpora and to TD; and with the study of official documents, textual category about which there are almost no studies (cf. Silveira, 2007)

A colocação de pronomes clíticos em sentenças infinitivas preposicionadas na escrita brasileira dos séculos XIX e XX

In this work we present the description and analysis of the clitics collocation patterns in prepositional infinitive sentences within the Brazilian writing in the centuries XIX and XX. The corpus in analysis is comprised of letters of newspaper readers and newspaper writers, as well as of advertisements (ads) taken from Brazilian newspapers from different regions / states – Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Ceará and Pernambuco – and written in the Centuries XIX and XX. They belong to the common minimum corpus of the project named Projeto para a História do Português Brasileiro (PHPB or Project to the History of the Brazilian Portuguese, in English). Its analysis is based on theoreticalmethodological postulates of the Theory of Variation and Change (WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 1968[2006]; LABOV, 1972[2008]); on the Theory of Principles and Parameters (CHOMSKY, 1981, 1986) and on the model of Grammar Competition (KROCH, 1989; 2001). By trying to articulate those presuppositions from both the theories we present a proposition of theoretical interface between the Variation Theory and the Grammar one. Concerning the empirical results achieved by means of this research, we could figure that, in the context in which there were prepositional infinitive sentences, the most significant independent variable to the occurrence of the proclisis is the type of preposition that comes before the verb in the infinitive. Before that, we found out that there are prepositions which strongly direct the proclisis, as it is the case of the prepositions in Portuguese sem, por, de and para, with all of them presenting Relative Weights over 0,52. Another important result is the one attested in the data referring the state of Rio de Janeiro (RJ). This state is the only one of the sample which is located in the Southeastern region and also presents itself as the main proclisis conditioner amongst the localities pertaining to the sample. In order to explain those results, we raised the hypothesis that the proclisis implementation may be more advanced in the Southeastern than in the Northeastern Brazil, however that hypothesis must be confirmed or refuted in future works. We also present, in this work, a theoretical explanation about the clitics colocation in prepositional infinitive sentences within the Brazilian writing in the XIX and XX centuries. The theoretical explanation we found to interpret the achieved results associates Magro’s proposition (2005), regarding the existence of prepositions occupying the nucleus PP and the existence of prepositions which can play the role of a completer and occupy the nucleus CP, according to Galves (2000; 2001), regarding the existent relation between the clitic colocation and the association of traits-phi to the functional categories COMP, Tense and Person. Our proposition is that the occurrence of prepositions which occupy the nucleus CP causes changes in the values attributed to the traits-phi and to the strong Vtraits in the functional categories COMP, Tense and Person. Thus, we defend that proclisis in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is derived from the movement of the verb to the functional category tense in which there is the association of traits +V and traits +AGR, what legitimates the proclisis according to Galves´s proposition (2000; 2001).

Os possessivos de segunda pessoa em cartas de leitores de jornais brasileiros dos séculos XIX e XX

Based on the theoretical and methodological presuppositions of the theory of language variation and change (cf. WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 2006 [1968]), it is described and analyzed in this article the process of variation/change concerning the second person possessive pronouns in letters from readers of Brazilian newspapers from the XIX and XX centuries. These letters feature a portrait of the Brazilian press from the South (Santa Catarina), Southeast (Rio de Janeiro) and Northeast (Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte) regions in each century and are part of the Project for Brazilian Portuguese History‘s (PHPB) printed common minimal corpus. The point of departure of this work is the idea that the use of variant forms of expressing second person possessive pronouns – teu and seu – results from the interaction characterizing the varied social roles performed by the letters‘ senders. Arranging communicative units, which gather elements/features denoting time and space, conditioned and determined by socio-historical and cultural aspects, the readers‘ letters, turn out to be a promising research field under the light of this paper. More specifically, In the row of presented results in studies about the pronominal system in the diachroneity of/in Brazilian Portuguese (PB) (FARACO, 2002; LORENGIAN-PENKAL, 2007; CALLOU; LOPES, 2003; LOPES; DUARTE, 2003; MENON, 2005; ARDUIN; COELHO, 2006; LOPES, 2009; MARCOTULIO, 2010), the results featured in here point at different usages of the possessives, noticing the coexistence of the forms teu/tua and seu/sua strongly conditioned by the socio-discursive nature of the readers‘ letters in the course of the centuries and through different regions.

Os possessivos de segunda pessoa em cartas de leitores de jornais brasileiros dos séculos XIX e XX

Based on the theoretical and methodological presuppositions of the theory of language variation and change (cf. WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 2006 [1968]), it is described and analyzed in this article the process of variation/change concerning the second person possessive pronouns in letters from readers of Brazilian newspapers from the XIX and XX centuries. These letters feature a portrait of the Brazilian press from the South (Santa Catarina), Southeast (Rio de Janeiro) and Northeast (Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte) regions in each century and are part of the Project for Brazilian Portuguese History‘s (PHPB) printed common minimal corpus. The point of departure of this work is the idea that the use of variant forms of expressing second person possessive pronouns – teu and seu – results from the interaction characterizing the varied social roles performed by the letters‘ senders. Arranging communicative units, which gather elements/features denoting time and space, conditioned and determined by socio-historical and cultural aspects, the readers‘ letters, turn out to be a promising research field under the light of this paper. More specifically, In the row of presented results in studies about the pronominal system in the diachroneity of/in Brazilian Portuguese (PB) (FARACO, 2002; LORENGIAN-PENKAL, 2007; CALLOU; LOPES, 2003; LOPES; DUARTE, 2003; MENON, 2005; ARDUIN; COELHO, 2006; LOPES, 2009; MARCOTULIO, 2010), the results featured in here point at different usages of the possessives, noticing the coexistence of the forms teu/tua and seu/sua strongly conditioned by the socio-discursive nature of the readers‘ letters in the course of the centuries and through different regions.