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Part of
The Portuguese Language Continuum in Africa and Brazil
Edited by Laura Álvarez López, Perpétua Gonçalves and Juanito Ornelas de Avelar
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 20] 2018
► pp. 267–290

Chapter 11
The agreement continuum in urban samples of African, Brazilian and European varieties of Portuguese

| Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | CNPq | FAPERJ
| Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | CNPq | FAPERJ

Our aim is to contrast number expression in nominal phrases (NPs) and in verbal phrases (VPs), taking into consideration variationist analysis of Brazilian Portuguese (BP), European Portuguese (EP), and Portuguese spoken in São Tomé (STP) and in Mozambique (MP). Building on sociolinguistic principles, the analysis shows that two patterns of agreement characterise varieties of Portuguese: a variable rule of plural marking, even if in differing degrees, in the non-European urban varieties versus a categorical (NP internal agreement) or semi-categorical one (P6 verbal agreement) in EP. Finally, the results allow us to propose a continuum of nominal and verbal agreement patterns in the four urban varieties, based on greater or lesser rates of plural marking and on levels of education.

Keywords: patterns of agreement, varieties of Portuguese, sociolinguistic constraints, continuum of agreement
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodological aspects
    • 2.1Brief profiles of the communities
    • 2.2Methodological procedures
  • 3.Summary findings for EP, BP and STP
    • 3.1The starting point: European Portuguese
      • 3.1.1Nominal agreement: A categorical rule
      • 3.1.2Verbal agreement: A semi-categorical rule
    • 3.2Brazilian Portuguese and São Tomé Portuguese
      • 3.2.1Nominal agreement: A variable rule
      • 3.2.2Verbal agreement: A variable rule
  • 4.Exploring a new corpus: The Portuguese spoken in Mozambique
    • 4.1Nominal agreement in the pilot sample of MP
    • 4.2Verbal agreement in MP
  • 5.Towards delimiting a continuum of patterns of agreement in varieties of Portuguese
  • 6.Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 22 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.20.12bra
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