A expressão do imperativo verbal na região Norte: análise dos dados do Projeto ALiB

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze the expression of the verbal imperative as a phenomenon of linguistic variation, as it can be associated with the indicative (pega, faz, vem) or the subjunctive (pegue, faça, venha) forms, in the Northern Region of Brazil. As a result, data from municipalities in the inland areas of states in the Northern Region were included in the research corpus from the Linguistic Atlas of Brazil Project. We compare the results with those from the capital cities, which Oliveira (2023) has already analyzed. The foundation for this research lies in the theoretical and methodological framework of Dialectology (Cardoso, 2010; Thun, 2017) and Variationist Sociolinguistics (Weinreich; Labov; Herzog, 2006 [1968]; Labov, 2008 [1972]), thus characterizing a geossociolinguistic research. The data collected were analyzed using GoldVarb X software (Sankoff; Tagliamonte; Smith, 2005). The results were then presented through graphs and tables, which helped to effectively describe and analyze the findings. According to the data, the indicative form of the imperative verb mood is the one used most frequently in the Northern Region, accounting for 65.7% of the corpus data. In contrast, the subjunctive form accounts for 34.3%. The inland regions that favor the subjunctive form of the imperative verb mood are found in the states of Amazonas, Pará, and Acre. The investigated phenomenon correlates with the sentence polarity, the phonological extension of the verb, the verb paradigm, the informant’s gender, the part of the survey, and the diatopic variation. The negative imperative subjunctive mood is favored by the following variants: irregular verbs with more phonological extension, male participants, and the most monitored parts of survey. Diatopic variation is an influential variable in the region, with more conservative localities such as Cruzeiro do Sul/AC, Benjamim Constant/AM, Humaitá/AM, Itaituba/PA, and Marabá/PA, and more innovative localities such as Conceição do Araguaia/PA and Natividade/TO. In the last one, there is a categorical use of the indicative form, which positions it at the forefront of linguistic change in the Northern Region. Both linguistic and extralinguistic factors are involved in this phenomenon, and the considerations presented in this dissertation will help map the realization of the imperative verb mood in Brazilian Portuguese.