Amália Mendes,Maria Eugênia Lammoglia Duarte
2, Maria
Fernanda Bacelar do Nascimento
1, Luísa Pereira
1, Antónia
Estrela
11 Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa 2 Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro /CNPq
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], luí[email protected], [email protected]
Pronominal constructions and indefinite reading
in varieties of Portuguese
Abstract
The paper examines the attitudes and language conceptions of dominating and non-dominating language communities of pluricentric languages which differ in many ways. It is shown that in dominating nations the one-nation-one-language concept is an undisputed basic concept which is shared by most speakers of these varieties and brings about a clear distinction between linguistic „standard“ and „nonstandard-forms“. Contrary to this speakers of non-dominating varieties find themselves under pressure to legitimate their „deviating“ language behavior, even though they might use the standard variety of their country. The situation also leads to a kind of „diglossia“ between the own national norms and the exogene norms of the dominating nation. The paper also looks at the psychological effects of this situation and at possible ways to overcome them. It is shown that the non-dominating varieties face a dilemma as a thorough codification of their actual linguistic norms sooner or later leads to a separation from the norms of the dominating variety and to the development of a language of it's own.
1. Introduction
structures and readings, ranging from reflexive and reciprocal, intrinsically pronominal, passive, impersonal or anticausative, which share the presence of a clitic element “SE”. Our objective is to observe the behaviour of these pronominal constructions in corpora of different varieties of Portuguese worldwide: European Portuguese (EP), Brazilian Portuguese (BP), and the Portuguese varieties of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and S. Tome and Principe (Bacelar do Nascimento et al. 2008). Although Portuguese is the official language in all these countries, the local situation is very diverse: while in Portugal and Brazil, Portuguese is a first language, it is frequently a second language in the 5 African countries. In Angola and Mozambique, Portuguese coexists with a large diversity of languages spoken by the population but the number of Portuguese speakers has increased since independence from Portugal (in 1975) and Portuguese has established itself as a factor of national unity. In the case of Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and S. Tome and Principe, the situation is somehow different because creole languages have emerged and are widely used, resulting in Portuguese being spoken by a minority.
A contrastive approach to pronominal constructions in EP and the African varieties have been addressed in previous studies, in some cases among other constructions (Gonçalves / Strout 1998, 2000, 2002; Mendes / Estrela 2008; Duarte et al. 2010). Our objective is to enlarge these results to include the Brazilian variety of Portuguese, so as to identify possible syntactic and semantic patterns and analyze whether these patterns are convergent among varieties, taking EP as a reference. The case of Brazilian variety deserves, however, a special attention because it did not follow the same direction as EP, which underwent phonological processes with important consequences in syntax, from the 16th Century on, producing new features which were implemented in the standard writing by Romantic writers in order to approximate speech and writing. BP, which had followed, at least in writing, a more conservative grammar, closer to Classical Portuguese, witnessed a conscious move, by a cultural élite, towards the new standard norm reflected in Modern Portuguese. This attitude only contributed to deepen the gap between speech and writing in Brazil.
The constructions addressed in our study involve different types of clitics: (i) inherent reflexive clitics with pronominal verbs (queixar-se
‘to complain’, lembrar-se ‘to remember’); (ii) argumental reflexive clitics in constructions such as (lavar-se ‘to wash oneself’); (iii) clitics in anticausative constructions (preocupar-se ‘ to worry’); (iv) passive with SE (vendem-se casas ‘houses are sold’); (v) and nominative SE (vende-se casas ‘SUB_IND sell houses’). Passive and nominative SE suspend the external argument and the difference between them is only superficial: in a structure with a transitive verb and a plural internal argument, standard Portuguese exhibits verbal agreement.
We will observe argumental reflexive and inherently pronominal constructions in terms of the presence or absence of the clitic, taking also into consideration cases of clitic optionality in EP. We will also compare strategies to mark the indetermination of the subject in the 7 varieties, either with a clitic (passive and nominative SE) or without clitic, distinguishing between finite and infinitive clauses. Before starting our comparative study, let us already point to the fact that, in spite of similarities, some verbs that require a reflexive in EP are not pronominal in BP. As for passive SE, this structure is almost absent from spoken BP, but it partially recovered in standard writing. Also, indefinite clitic SE is not present in BP as first language; rather, it is part of the grammar of standard writing, also partially recovered by schooling, and does not appear in spontaneous conversation. Generic subjects are represented in BP by an increasing use of nominative pronouns, such as ‘você’ (you), ‘a gente’ (the people) and ‘nós’ (we).
The corpora will provide us with data to explore the following questions:
(i) The absence of the clitic in certain varieties of Portuguese has been mentioned in the literature. What are the factors that determine the presence or absence of the clitic in these constructions? Is the argumental clitic of the reflexive construction more frequent than non-argumental clitics? If so, is this a general tendency in all the varieties?
(ii) In the AVP, we frequently encounter the insertion of a clitic (in non-pronominal constructions in EP). Is this tendency found in BP and in what contexts?
(iii) Is the pronominal passive construction present in all varieties with the same high frequency as in EP? What strategies do we find in the Portuguese varieties to express the subject indetermination?
establish relations between these 7 varieties, at national but also regional level and, finally, we will reflect on the notion of pluricentricity (Muhr 2012).
2. Constructions with SE in Portuguese 2.1 Argumental reflexive clitics
The clitic SE may be a verb internal argument, with the function of direct or indirect object, being co-referent with the subject and exhibiting the formas me (1st), te (2nd) se (3rd) sg./pl (e.g. eu alimento-me ‘I feed myself’). See example (1) of our EP corpus1.
(1) porque o português alimenta-se mal a quase todos os níveis (EP) ‘because Portuguese people feed-themselves bad at almost all
levels.’
The number of contexts with the clitic, present or absent in each variety, in this construction, is presented in Table 22.
EP BP-RJ AN CV GB MO STP Argumental clitic present 31 (100%) 17 (100%) 04 (100%) 01 (50%) 01 (25%) 14 (%) 04 (100%) Argumental clitic absent 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 01 (50%) 03 (75%) 1 (0%) 0 (0%) Total 31 (100%) 17 (100%) 04 (100%) 02 (100%) 4 (100%) 15 (100%) 04 (100%) Table 2: Reflexive constructions in the corpora of the 7 varieties In the EP variety, the reflexive construction always shows the
1 In Portuguese, the clitic typically occurs immediately after the verbal predicate, after a hyphen. Certain
constructions and elements attract the clitic pronoun to a pre-verbal position, like subordinate clauses (O
João disse que o encontrou ontem ‘João said that he found him yesterday’, lit: João said that him found
yesterday) and the negation adverb (O João não se lavou ‘João didn’t wash himself’, lit: João not himself washed). BP prefers the clitic in pre-verbal position, another conservative syntactic feature.
2 We use the following abbreviations in Table2 and also when citing corpus examples: BP-RJ=Brazilian
Portuguese-Rio de Janeiro, AN=Angola, CV=Cape Verde, GB=Guinea Bissau, MO=Mozambique, STP=Sao Tome and Principe.
presence of the pronoun, and the same is true with BP, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe (cf. (2)):
(2) a. tem que ir para um lugar onde eu ganho, ou possa me manter e
manter a família (PB-RJ)
‘have to go to a place where I make money, or where I can provide for myself and provide for my family’
b. a língua local em que o indivíduo viu, se viu crescer (AN) ‘the local language where the individual saw himself grow up’ c. que eu me situo, vá lá, dentro do campo da, da intern[...], da
internacional socialista (CV)
‘that I place myself, let’s say, in the field of the international socialist’
d. assim as pessoas podem amar-se (GB) ‘that way people can love one another e. eu ia aleijar-me com a enxada (MO)
‘I was going to hurt myself with the hoe’
f. protegiam-se da cobra através de óleo de palma. (STP) ‘they protected themselves from the snake with palm oil’
In both Cape Verde and Mozambique there is one case of absence of SE (3a), and three in the Guinea-Bissau corpus (see examples (3b,c). GB shows a higher number of occurrences without the clitic than with the clitic and differs, consequently, from the pattern of the other varieties.
(3) a. Inscrevi [_] num projecto de… de alfabetização (CV) ‘I enrolled [myself] in a literacy project’
b. tem que fazer aquele trabalho, às vezes para poder só alimentar
[_ ] com o dinheiro que vai ganhar nisso, hum. às vezes também para ajudar as famílias na casa. (GB)
‘[he/you] have to do that work, sometimes just to be able to feed [yourself/himself] with the money that you will earn with that, hum. sometimes also to help the families at home’
c. Ele vai ajudar [_] a si só (GB) ‘He will help [himself]’
Despite the small number of contexts in certain varieties (NA, CV, GB, STP), the tendency for the argumental reflexive clitic to be present is confirmed in our data.
Although our BP corpus from the area of Rio de Janeiro does not show any case of absence of argumental SE, Rocha (1999) and Assis (1988) presented cases of such omission in the corpus of the Brazilian variety of Minas Gerais, reproduced here in (4) and (5), respectively (the absence of the clitic is marked as “_”).
(4) a. Ele podia matricular [_] em duas cadeiras. ‘he could enroll [himself] in two courses’ b. Cê matriculava [_] no ano subsequente.
‘you enrolled [yourself] in the subsequent year’ c. O homem fantasiava [_] e saía.
‘the man dressed up [himself] and left’ d. A F. não [_] comprometeu.
‘the F. did not [herself] commit’
e. As pessoas vão apresentar [_] lá fora e são aplaudidas de pé.
‘The people will present [themselves] outside and are applauded with enthusiasm’
f. Como é que você [_] vestia?
‘how is it that you dressed [yourself]?’
(Cf. Rocha 1999)
(5) Ele envenenou [_] e morreu/ ele matou ele mesmo ‘he poisoned [himself] and died / he killed himself’
(Cf. Assis 1988)
2.2 Intrinsically pronominal verbs
Intrinsically pronominal verbs are verbal predicates that occur only in the pronominal form, like queixar-se ‘to complain’ in (6), or are pronominal in one of their meanings. The clitic element does not fill a position of an argument; however, just like the personal clitic pronoun, it can vary in person and gender (1st, 2nd, 3rd p. singular or plural) according to the nominal element in subject position (see example (6)). It is in some cases difficult to distinguish between an argumental clitic and an intrinsically pronominal verb. It is also important to keep in mind that some of these predicates can also occur in EP in a construction
without a clitic, as it is the case of the verb lembrar ‘to remember’, which can be transitive (ele lembra a sua juventude ‘he remembers his youth’), or intrinsically pronominal (ele lembrou-se da sua juventude ‘he remembered himself of his youth’).
The corpus data for this construction are presented in Table 3. Besides the presence or absence of the clitic, we also consider a third situation to deal with the dual behaviour of verbs such as lembrar/lembrar-se. The data differ significantly from those obtained for argumental clitics. Table 3 shows that, while EP shows a categorical choice for the presence of the clitic (6), in what concerns the other varieties of Portuguese we find lower rates: in Brazil-Rio, we find around 80%, while in other African varieties percentages range from 68% to 31%.
EP BP- RJ AN CV GB MO STP Inherent Clitic Present 64 (100%) 50 (80,6%) 22 (68,8%) 07 (31,8%) 22 (56,4%) 32 (60,3%) 22 (48,9%) Inherent Clitic Absent 0 (0%) 05 (8%) 04 (12,5%) 14 (63,6%) 16 (41%) 12 (22,6%) 20 (44,4%) Inherent Clitic Optional 0 (0%) 07 (11,2%) 06 (18,7%) 01 (4,5%) 1 (2,6%) 09 (16,9%) 03 (6,7%) Total 64 (100%) 62 (100%) 32 (100%) 22 (100%) 39 (100%) 53 (100%) 45 (100%) Table 3: Inherently pronominal constructions in the corpora of the 7 varieties
Examples from (7)-(9) show the variable use of inherent clitics: (6) o facto de nos apercebermos daquilo que realmente acontece
quando nós quando nós falamos (EP)
‘the fact that we CL are aware of what really happens when we when we talk’
(7) a. e mesmo as, as raparigas já mais crescidas começam a interessar-se mais (CV)
b. nenhum dos meus filhos [_] interessa pela filatelia. (CV) ‘none of my children has [_] interest in philately’
(8) a. eu refiro [_] mais a cultura cá em Guiné [...]. refiro-me a tudo - cinema, teatro, jogos – tudo (GB)
‘I refer [_] more to the culture here in Guinea […]. I refer CL to everything – cinema, theatre, games – everything’
b. ah, tenho estado a trabalhar, a sacrificar [_] muito (STP) ‘ah, I have been working, sacrificing [_] a lot’
(9) inclusive não posso me ajoelhar. [...] e de maneira que eu não posso [_] ajoelhar por causa disso, não é? [..] quando eu vou a uma missa, qualquer coisa, eu não [_] ajoelho de jeito nenhum (PB-RJ) ‘inclusively I can’t CL knee […] so I can’t [_] knee because of that, isn’t it? […] when I attend the mess, anything, I don’t [_] knee at all’
In BP-RJ, AN and MO, most cases of absence of the clitic are found with predicates that show a dual behaviour even in EP (such as lembrar/lembrar-se ‘to remember’, ir embora/ir-se embora ‘to go away’), as in examples (10)-(11). While data shows that EP favours the presence of clitic even in these cases, the other varieties show both possibilities. (10) a. e casei-me em mil novecentos e setenta e setenta e quatro (MO)
‘and (I) married CL in nineteen hundred seventy …seventy-four’ b. quando nós casámos em cinquenta e seis... (MO)
‘when we [_] married in fifty-six....’
(11) a. näo significa que eu esqueci os meus sonhos (STP) ‘(it) does not mean that I forgot [_] the my dreams’ b. ele vai embora, você, também ficas (AN)
‘he goes [_] away, you also stay 2.3 Indefinites
We take into consideration in this section 3 different constructions that involve the absence of an external argument; therefore, we treat all these cases as involving Agent or Cause indetermination. We distinguish between finite and infinitive clauses, since the strategies differ greatly in the two constructions. The constructions are the nominative construction, the pronominal passive
construction and a null subject construction (only allowed in infinitive clauses in EP)3. Contrary to all other pronominal constructions, the
impersonal clitic in the nominative construction only occurs as SE, the 3rd p.sg. word form, as in (12). While this is a possible construction in Portuguese, a null-subject language, the equivalent in other languages requires a lexical item of unspecified reference in subject position, like on in French (13). We distinguished between constructions such as (12a), with a plural argument and no plural marks on the verb, and (12b) in our compilation of the data: the first are classified as “Nominative” and the second as “nominative”.
(12) a. Vendeu-se muitos carros novos.4
sold-CL many new cars.
‘They / Someone sold many new cars.’ b. Diz-se que o preço da gasolina vai subir.
says-CL that the price of petrol is going up ‘It is said that the price of petrol is going up.’
(13) On a vendu beaucoup de nouvelles voitures.
‘They / Someone sold many new cars.’
In the case of the pronominal passive construction, the internal argument is promoted to the subject position and there is agreement between this constituent and the verb, as in (14) below, making it in many cases difficult to distinguish between the two constructions.
(14) Estas casas venderam-se ontem. These houses sold+pl-CL yesterday ‘These houses were sold yesterday.’
When the internal argument is singular (15a), the structure is in fact ambiguous between an impersonal nominative construction (cf. English gloss in (15b)) and a passive construction (see English gloss in (15c)):
3 We do not take into consideration the anticausative construction, also refered to as pronominal construction
with ergative SE or inchoative construction. One of the reasons is the scarce data available in our corpora. 4 This construction is traditionally described as less normative than the construction with passive SE where
the nominal phrase is the subject and the verb and the subject agree in number (Venderam-se muitas
casas naquele bairro ‘Many houses were sold in that neighbourhood’), although recent descriptions and
(15) a. Vendeu-se ontem um carro novo. sold-CL yesterday a new car
‘[Someone] sold a new car.’
‘An old house was sold in that street yesterday.’
We will discuss contexts of nominative and passive constructions by observing separately cases of infinitive and finite clauses (Tables 5 and 6), counting together all occurrences of Nominative, Passive and ambiguous constructions.
2.3.1 Finite clauses
We now turn to the Nominative and Passive pronominal constructions, and ambiguous contexts, in finite clauses. Comparative results are presented in Table 5.
EP BP-RJ AN CV GB MO STP Presence of clitic 77 (100%) 14 (20%) 6 (35%) 22 (96%) 22 (100%) 21 (91,3%) 42 (91%) Absence of clitic 0 (0%) 56 (80%) 11 (65%) 1 (4%) 0 0(%) 2 (8,7%) 4 (9%) Total 77 (100%) 70 (100%) 17 (100%) 23 (100%) 22 (100%) 23 (100%) 46 (100%)
Table 5: Clitic SE in indefinite constructions – Finite clauses EP and GB do not show absence of clitic SE and the only cases of genuine Passive (9 instances), with agreement between verb and internal argument, occur in the EP corpus, as illustrated in (16):
(16) é um crime porque nunca se vão largar touros que vão ser corridos em pontas em ponta fina (EP)
‘(it) is a crime, because never SE-CL are going to let go [bulls] which are going to be fought with a spade [NÃO TENHO IDEIA DESSE SIGNIFICADO]
Besides EP and GB, clitics are also expressive in CV, MO, STP, either Nominative or nominative (17). BP, as expected, and AN show the lowest rates of SE, 21% and 35%, respectively (18).
(17) a. então vê-se mesas grandes de jovens a beberem coca-cola e a comerem hamburguers e coisas assim mas os restaurantes não deixam de de servir (EP)
‘then see.3sg CL big tables with young people drinking coke and eating hamburgers….
b. produzia-se manuais, (GB) ‘produced.3sg manuals’
(18) a. é uma ótima profissão. ganha-se dinheiro (BP) ‘(it) is a good job, get.3sg SE money’
b. arrasta consigo esta pequena sequela de vida da aldeia, da, do meio comunitário em que só se fala mesmo o umbundo (AN) ‘(you) carry with yourself this sequel of living in a village, of a community where only CL speak.3sg the ‘umbundo’
The absence of clitic is predominant in BP and AN and is very rare in CV MO, STP:
(19) a. aqui dentro não [_] vê nada (BP) ‘inside here don’t [_] see.3ps anything
b. no Huambo, vai [_] lá, assim, sete hora ou oito hora, lá para as quinze está[_] a largar. (AN)
‘in Huambo, go.3ps [_] there, about seven, eight o´clock, around fifteen is.3ps leaving’
This absence of indefinite SE with a third person verb without any other mark, which is not attested in a consistent Null Subject Language, is particularly found in instructions. Notice that the third person singular verbs have no definite antecedent. In fact, the variation between the use of SE and a null generic subject (underlined) is clear. Besides, first person singular (italic) is another alternative form:
(20) “açucarinha, como é que se faz? ‘açucarinha, how is that CL does?
‘I will tell how is it that CL does’
pega ao coco, quebra no meio, lava-se, muito bem lavado, depois
'larra'
‘take.3ps the coconut, break.3ps in in half, wash-CL very well then grate.3ps’
põe numa panela limpa com um pouco de água e casca de limão,
‘put.3ps in a clean pan with a little water and lemon zest’
depois ponho açúcar [...], deixa cozer até secar, [..] quase a secar ‘then put.1ps sugar, let.3ps boil until to-dry almost dry’ [...] corta-se folha de banana, [...] depois limpa-se muito bem
limpado,
‘cut.3ps-CL leaf of banana.... then clean.3ps-CL very well cleaned’ depois espalha-se açucarinha. deixa secar,
‘then spread.CL açucarinha, let.3ps dry’
depois está a açucarinha. moda de São Tomé.” (STP) ‘after is the açucarinha, style of São Tomé’
‘açucarinha, how do you make it? I’m going to say how açucarinha is made: açucarinha, take the coconut, break it in half, it is washed, very well washed, then ‘larra’, put in a clean pan with a little bit of water and lemon peel, with a small spoon of butter, then let it boil very well boiled until the coconut is cooked. then I put sugar, I put sugar, let boil until it dries, after it is almost dry, put, arrange, a banana leaf is cut, banana-pão or prata, then it is cleaned very well cleaned, then the açucarinha is spread. let dry, after [you] have caught the açucarinha, let dry. then you have açucarinha, like it is done in Sao Tome.’
Some interesting aspects observed in the African varieties it the use of two strategies to indeterminate the subject (21a), with the use of both the 3rd. person plural verb for and the clitic SE; or the use of the reflexive SE twice, (21b); and the lack of agreement between the subject (1st person) and the clitic (3rd. person), (21c):
(21) a. cá na Guiné-Bissau comparado com outros países, dizem-se que a sida é, é uma, é, está em menor escala. GB
it is said that AIDS is on a smaller scale’
b. nos primeiros anos, o indivíduo fica, ficar no meio do, do da, da língua que se pretende mais tarde assimilar-se (AN)
‘in the first years, the individual stays in the middle of the language that CL wants to assimilate-CL later’
c. Eu não posso... quer dizer envolver-se com discotecas (STP) ‘I can’t … I mean to involve-CL.3ps in discos’
Such occurrences, which absent from EP, must be an evidence of a difficulty to assimilate the structures by non native. Not surprisingly, they are attested in some regions of BP.
2.3.2 Infinitive clauses
In infinitive clauses, indetermination of the subject is preferably expressed by a null subject in EP, but a pronominal construction is also available. Table 6 confirms the preference for null subjects in EP, BP and STP; however, the presence of the clitic SE deserves attention since it is not usually noticed in standard writing:
T abl e 6: Cli tic SE in
indefinite constructions – Infinitive clauses Both strategies are illustrated in (22) and (23):
EP BP AN CV GB MO STP Presence of clitic (24%) 9 (7,7%) 2 (57%) 4 (100%) 2 (83%) 5 0 (33%) 5 Absence of clitic (76%) 29 (92,3%) 24 (43%) 3 0 (17%) 1 (100%) 5 (67%) 10 Total 38 (100%) (100%) 26 (100%) 7 (100%) 2 (100%) 6 (100%) 5 (100%) 15
(22) a. há muito mais possibilidades de se ganhar mais (EP)
‘there are many more possibilities of CL making more money’ b. é frequente isso ver-se pessoas duma certa idade a apreciar os
bons pratos da cozinha algarvia
‘it is frequent to see CL people of a certain age appreciating the good recipes of Algarve cuisine’
(23) a. penso que [_] saber apenas uma língua é muito limitador (EP) ‘I think that to [_] know only one language is a strong limitation’ b. também era interessante [_] gravar assim umas conversas
‘it would also be interesting to [_] record some conversations (24) a. permuta nem sempre é muito fácil de se fazer... (BP)
´the exchange is not always easy to CL make b. é mais fácil, falar-se umbundo (AN)
‘(it) is easier to speak-CL umbundo’
c. é o momento para se reflectir de facto um pouco sobre a situação
da mulher. (GB)
‘(it) is the moment to CL think in fact a little about the condition of the woman’
d. a tentativa de se obter resultados fáceis (STP) ‘an attempt to CL obtain easy results
(25) a. quer dizer, é uma coisa mais aconchegante né? um lugar agradável de [_] ficar (BP)
‘I mean, (it) is something cosier, see? a pleasant place to [_] stay b. não era muito fácil, eh, encontrar [_] escolas muito próximas da
aldeia (AN)
‘(it) was not very easy to find [_] schools close to the village
c. mas, haverá uma necessidadade de [_] fazer uma reforma de fundo, (GB)
‘but there will be a necessity to [_] do a a big change d. ah isso há-de ser difícil para [_] dar resposta (MO)
‘ah, this must be difficult to [_] give an answer
e. tem um macaco próprio para [_] poder tocar, esticar carro, (...), pôr tudo novo (STP)
‘there is a jack proper to [_] be able to repair the car, put everything new’
3. Conclusion
In what concerns inherent clitics, EP is quite stable and show total presence of the clitic, while all other varieties show some variation. Nevertheless, the presence of the clitic is still the dominant situation for the six varieties.
Argumental clitics (reflexive and reciprocal reading) are stable across all varieties, except for GB, where the absence of clitic is more frequent than its presence. Notice, however, that the occurrences of argumental clitics in the African varieties corpora are scarse. Although it is not found in the Rio de Janeiro corpus, the literature on Brazilian Portuguese has pointed to the absence of argumental reflexive clitics is found in data from Minas Gerais.
Few data are available for anticausative in our sample, but again EP shows an almost categorical presence of clitic, while in BP the opposite is true. Our data for BP complements, previous studies for the Mozambican variety (Gonçalves 1990) and the EP and African varieties (Mendes / Estrela 2008) provides more input to the discussion of whether the absence of the clitic is due to a Bantu influence.[não ficou claro porque o EP está no meio]
Indefinite contexts show an opposite behaviour in finite and infinitive clauses. In infinitive clauses, the absence of clitic is the predominant pattern in EP, BP, MO and STP and the clitic is only present around 20% of the cases in EP and BP. The varieties of CV and GB show the opposite pattern and this requires further analysis. In finite clauses, the clitic is always present in EP, while in BP and AN the dominant pattern is the absence of the clitic. All other African varieties follow the EP pattern. The expression of the indefinite with a null undetermined subject in finite clauses is especially frequent in instructional discourse or with verb forms with modal or aspectual value. The analysis of social factors in the PB-RJ corpus does not show any significant differences related to gender and education level. However, age seems to be an important factor: the presence of the clitic is found in utterances of the older speakers, regardless of their education
level.
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