A concordância nominal de número em predicativos do sujeito no português falado em Luanda

Abstract

The variation in the use of nominal number agreement in subject predicates has certainly been studied in Brazilian Portuguese and Mozambican Portuguese (Scherre, 1991; Dias, 1996; Lucchesi, 2009; Antonino, 2007; Salgado, 2010; Furtado, 2017; Soares, 2022). These studies show that there are some generalizations regarding variation and change in predicates, such as the influence of subject and verb characterization on morphological number marking and the relevance of education and the status of Portuguese in African varieties that exist in situations of widespread multilingualism. Given this, the research proposed here aims to identify and analyze the social and linguistic factors that condition variation in the use of predicative structures in Portuguese spoken in Luanda, in order to broaden discussions on the topic, as well as to seek evidence that reinforces discussions about linguistic contact in the formation of African varieties of Portuguese, which coexist in multilingual contexts. Aware of the need for research that takes into account the relationship between language, society, and culture, this research is anchored in the Theory of Variation and Change (Weinreich, Labov, Herzog, 2006 [1968]). Thus, a corpus of Portuguese spoken in Angola's capital, Luanda, was used, consisting of sociolinguistic interviews recorded in 2008 and 2012, with Angolan participants who declared Portuguese as their L1 or L2. This research aims to contribute to the description of Portuguese spoken in Luanda, expanding morphosyntactic studies focused on this variety. This research contributes to the description of the Portuguese spoken in Luanda, particularly in relation to agreement patterns in subject predicates, whose education level is a relevant factor in understanding the phenomenon. This makes schools an important agent in guiding the linguistic uses of the population, which is still centered on the dichotomous conception of language as “right” and “wrong.” In addition, the age group indicates that the Portuguese spoken in Luanda is following the path of linguistic change in an innovative sense (non- application of number agreement), as young people are no longer following the rigid rules of the standard norm. Therefore, the reality of the phenomenon in Angola, despite revealing a high percentage of agreement (79%), higher than the percentage results of the urban cultured norm of Brazilian Portuguese, encourages a discussion based on the socio-historical formation of the nation and the search for the European standard still present in society, laws, and formal education processes.