Chapter published in:
Language Variation - European Perspectives VII: Selected papers from the Ninth International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 9), Malaga, June 2017
Edited by Juan-Andrés Villena-Ponsoda, Francisco Díaz Montesinos, Antonio-Manuel Ávila-Muñoz and Matilde Vida-Castro
[Studies in Language Variation 22] 2019
► pp. 175–190

Chapter 11
Panel and trend studies

Evidence from Brazilian Portuguese

| Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/CNPq
| Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/CNPq

In this paper, we provide further evidence to the discussion of the intersection of apparent time and real time for the understanding of language change. We analyse three variable processes in the spoken variety of Rio de Janeiro: the anterior glide deletion in the diphthong [ej], the replacement of the preposition A by PARA (‘to’) in dative complements and the loss of null referential pronominal subjects. By combining cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence, we show that the observed tendency in apparent time is confirmed for the replacement of A by PARA and the implementation of overt referential pronouns. We are facing continuing and irreversible communal changes. In the case of [j] deletion, the predictions obtained in apparent time are only partially confirmed. The results from the longitudinal analyses suggest a reversal of this process in the context of palatal fricatives both in the community and in most individuals. We claim that this reversal is a generalisation of a stronger tendency to glide insertion in similar phonetic contexts.

Keywords: glide deletion, dative PPs, null/overt subjects, apparent time, short term real time
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The phenomena
  • 3.Deletion of the glide [j] – evidence from apparent and real time
  • 4.The replacement of the preposition A by PARA in dative complements – evidence from apparent and real time
  • 5.Overt (vs null) subjects in apparent and real time
  • 6.Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 December 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.22.11dep
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