Revista de Estudos da Linguagem

53-111

Authors: Maria Cândida Drumond Mendes Barros

The aim of this paper is to juxtapose the theme of missionaryliteracy with a theoretical discussion of the attribute of autonomywith reference to literacy. By missionary literacy we mean thealphabetic typographic writing system created by missionaries aspart of the evangelical process of biblical translation. In particular,this study focuses on those cases of missionary literacy based onlinguistics, for which the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) is ofspecial significance.In so far as the debate on autonomy is concerned, we refer tothe controversy between the autonomy model of Goody, Ong andOlson and the ideological model of Street. The relevance of thequestion of autonomy in relation to the theme of missionary literacyhas its origins in the Protestant tradition, that the text is its owninterpreter (Olson 1991), an autonomous conception of the writtentext. This concept of literacy is a special expression of religiousliteral meaning, and therefore allows us to focus attention on theparticular feature of literacy in the missionary domain.

125-145

Authors: Evelyne Dogliani Madureira

Cet article propose une réfléxion concernant le rôle joué par deuxmodels explicatifs du changement linguistique (le modelnéogrammairien et celui de la diffusion lexicale) dans le processusde vocalisation de la latérale palatale en portugais. L’analyse prenden compte les caractéristiques du même processus en d’autreslangues romanes, le français, surtout. Des facteurs de différentesordres tels que la derive et le soustrat linguistique, ainsi que lesaspects socio-culturels intervenants dans les processus dechangement linguistique y sont considérés.

159-170

Authors: Janice Helena Chaves Marinho

This paper presents a partial analysis of the use of the item onde (where)in academic written texts produced by university students. These textstend to present several cohesive mechanisms which are responsiblefor their realability. In general, the author constructs a coherentand cohesive discourse in order to lead his/her reader to the desiredmeaning. Nevertheless, sometimes he/she fails in using cohesivemechanisms, and that leads to a local incoherence, according toCharolles (1988). One example is the use of onde in written texts.In these texts, several passages were found in which this word wasused without reference to places, i.e. not according to what isprescribed by traditional Portuguese grammar. It seems that thisuse of onde points to a different function, an enlargement of itsfield of action.

183-209

Authors: Sílvia Helena Barbi

This article compares the most significant advances made by FrenchDiscourse Analysis (DA), developed by a team of researchers underthe pioneering leadership of Michel Pêcheux, with the ‘polyphonictheory’ developed by Oswald Ducrot. While DA develops animportant framework for discourse analysis which firmly situatesdiscourse in a broader context of social relations, Ducrot’s approachis not interested in the concepts of ‘ideology’ and ‘power’. If thiscrucial difference is taken into consideration, Oswald Ducrot’spolyphonic theory may be used by discourse analysts as oneapproach among others for investigating the interplay between the‘voices’ of discourse.

239-244

Authors: Elcemina Lucia Balvedi Pagliosa

RAMOS, Jânia M. O espaço da oralidade na sala de aula. SãoPaulo: Martins Fontes, 1997.

29-59

Authors: Maria Marta Pereira Scherre

Linguistic parallelism has been widely discussed in variationistliterature as an independent variable, often in the form of repetitionof the same variant of the dependent variable, in many linguisticphenomena and in a vast number of languages. In this paper, Idiscuss three main aspects of parallelism: (i) whether it can beinterpreted within the functional theoretical framework; (ii) theexistence of underlying functional principles; and (iii) whether itcan be accounted for by a single principle. In my discussion, I willpresent results for three linguistic phenomena that are affected bylinguistic parallelism on the discourse, clausal, syntagmatic, andword levels in Brazilian Portuguese. I will then discuss a largebody of research in which this constraint has been analyzed. Iconclude that the study of linguistic parallelism shows that thestudy of language use and structure can be better accounted forthrough variationist theory, functionalism, and discourse analysisworking together.

Authors: Maria Cecília Mollica, Kátia Henriques do Fundo, Luciana da Silva Gomes, Mônica da Silva Pinto Oliveira, Renata Flávia da Silva

This article focuses on the aphesis of es- with the purpose ofinvestigating (a) why it is restricted to a very limited portion of thelexicon and (b) how a relationship between variation and functioncan be established regarding aphesis. The results show that suchvariation is controlled by principles of communicability. The moreformal the speech (such as non-spontaneous narratives) the morechances of retention of es-.

109-120

Authors: Anthony Julius Naro

Both functional and non-functional variation exist on a large scale.A typically non-functional phenomenon is subject/verb concord,where plural markers are used more often precisely in thoseenvironments in which they are unnecessary from the point ofview of communicating meaning, such as when the subject andverb are adjacent. On the other hand, the use of realized versuszero subject pronouns is fully functional: such pronouns tend tobe used more frequently in environments in which their absencewould lead to ambiguity in interpretation on the discourse level.Non-functional variation is a characteristic of phenomena that arein an advanced stage of diachronic evolution, near the end of thefunctional cycle. Functional variation can be found near thebeginning of the cycle. In this regard, variable agreement has beenoccurring for several centuries, while the marked increase infrequency of use of subject pronouns is very recent.

139-160

Authors: Helena Gryner

In portuguese if-clauses there occur three morphosyntactic alternativeforms – present indicative (PI), futur subjunctive (FS) and imperfectsubjunctive (IS). Traditional grammars correlate these to the threesemantic categories of realis, potentialis and irrealis. Actually, therealis appear only in PI and the irrealis in IS. However, sociolinguisticanalysis shows that the eventual potentialis often has a PI form; andthe habitual or generic potentialis, that are similar to the realis, mayappear in the FS. This paper focuses on the in/variability of theseforms. It identifies an iconically motivated epistemic hierarchy wherestatistical distribution codifies the probabilistic perception of thereality continuum.

31-50

Authors: Carlos Alexandre Gonçalves

Left Deslocation (LD) and Focus (F) are phenomena characterized for putting in relief a constituent of the oral text. In other words, they are focusing strategies frequently used in Brazilian Portuguese (BP).For this reason, I intend to confront them in this paper, in order to check (a) their limits and (b) their structural domains. Thus, my purpose is to answer the following questions: (i) Are these phenomena independent, or do they exert mutual influence in at least some ways? (ii) Is there an obligated superposing between them? (iii) if not, what are the actuation domains (syntactic and/or phonological) of LD and F? (iv) What are the prosodic features of LD and F constituents? (v) What kinds of discursive-pragmatic phenomena motivate LD and F? My main aim is to show that LD shouldn’t be analized as a focus marker in BP, because Focus must be faced as a prosodic category that require a Contrastive Intonation.

59-89

Authors: Elisa Battisti

The acceptance of the hypothesis of a /vN/ sequence as the basis of both nasal vowels and diphthongs, and the investigation of the nature of the nasal consonant in syllable coda, led us to relate subspecification of the nasal segment to the triggering of nasalization through the principles of Prosodic Licensing (Itô 1986,1989) and Autosegmental Licensing (Goldsmith 1990). Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993, McCarthy & Prince 1993) conceives these principles as restrictions. The model predicts that the interaction of restrictions in a hierarchy determines the choice of the optimal form from a group of candidates generated by the grammar of a language for a given input. The conflict between Licence(place) and HavePlace chooses the homorganic NC sequence as one of the three possible optimal forms for the /vN/ sequence in word-internal position. In word-final position, the same two restrictions play a role in nasal glide formation from / oN/. The outcoming of a dissimilated peak-vowel is forced by MaxDist.

107-124

Authors: Márcia Barreto Berg

The aim of this paper is to identify the categorial nature of preposition, from the perpective of Chomsky’s Generative Grammar (1981/1995). The preposition has been described as a lexical, uniform category, defined by the features [ N, V]. This classification is not consensual, however. We therefore made a survey of the proprieties that distinguish the lexical from the functional, applied the properties to the data of Brazilian Portuguese and came to conclusion that prepositions belong to the functional category.

135-142

Authors: Ana Maria Chiarini

Resenha: Appropriate methodology and social context– Adrian Holliday

31-58

Authors: Marco Antônio de Oliveira

This paper is an attempt to reanalyse the process of final (r) deletion in Portuguese nominals according to the Lexical Diffusion Model.This analysis considers not only structural factors, mainly the lexical item, but also the individual as an important factor in the spread of the process, according to Shen (1990). Evidence is provided to show that the idea advanced in Oliveira (1991), that all sound changes are instances of lexical diffusion processes, is superior to the analysis provided by Oliveira (1983), cast in the Neogrammarian Model, for the same process.

81-96

Authors: Sigrid Castro Gavazzi

This essay classifies sub-topic closing in two categories: the phrastic, in which the discurse sections are developed in a linear manner, in contrast with the paraphrastic, in which the rhetorical closing recycles the previous information. The data are then subjected to a computational programme which selects factors, which determine the same paraphrastic closing: (–) world knowledge; (+) argumentation; (+) subjectivity; (+) basic sentence; (+) the female sex.

150-188

Authors: Hardarik Blühdorn

The present paper examines the relationship between pragmatics, semantics and grammar as subdisciplines of linguistics from three different perspectives. The first section gives a historical survey of their development during the 20th century and classifies linguistic schools according to their interest in different fields of research. The second part presents a systematic model of the field of objects to be investigated by linguistics, aiming at a more precise delimitation of its subdisciplines. Finally, in the third section, the division of labour between pragmatics, semantics and grammar is discussed in the light of the concrete example of verb valence.

23-64

Authors: Eunice Maria das Dores Nicolau

In this paper I discuss the characterization of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) in terms of the possibility of null subjects. Some recent analyses (TARALLO:1993b, DUARTE:1993/1995 and MENON:1994) have argued, on the basis of quantitative results, that BP has lost its prodrop character. But other variationist analyses (PAREDES DA SILVA:1988; NEGRÃO:1990; NICOLAU:1994; etc.) prove that BP can be characterized as presenting the possibility of null subjects. I show then that the proposal of linguistic change mentioned above cannot be maintained when faced with the Principles & Parameters model (cf. CHOMSKY:1981-1995). In other words, I show that the quantitative results of the variationist analyses cannot be considered as evidence of a parametric change or, more specifically, of the emergence of a new grammar.

87-102

Authors: James Duncan Hunter

Este trabalho examina a posição do Inglês como língua internacional em termos de forças políticas e econômicas que contribuíram para a posição dominante do inglês na arena mundial. O trabalho examina a acusação de que o ensino de inglês como segunda língua ou língua estrangeira contribui para o imperialismo lingüístico e cultural e desafia o pressuposto de que os falantes nativos de inglês são necessariamente os melhores professores. Recomenda- se aos profissionais de língua inglesa a adoção de uma filosofia de relativismo pragmático na sua avaliação das necessidades do aprendiz de forma a evitar tendências etnocêntricas em seus currículos.

127-158

Authors: Daniel Alvarenga; Marco Antonio de Oliveira

In this paper we examine the influence of the syllable structure of spoken Portuguese on the acquisition of written forms. Our main hypothesis is that spoken language offers a first model for the construction of written forms and so, by identifying the syllabic coda as a point of instability in spoken Portuguese, since it is subject to many phonological processes, we may predict that students will also present writing variations exactly at these same points. Our investigation takes into account structural as well as non-structural factors and we conclude that there is a strong correlation between instability in the syllabic coda and variation in their weitten representation.

193-208

Authors: Cleudemar Alves Fernandes

We consider that the subject results from a complex frame-work: there is a “self” which is the result of “other selves”. In that sense we developed in this study a discourse analysis of the protagonist of the novel O Coronel e o Lobisomem giving attention to the linguistic aspects that mark the subjectivity presence in the discourse and to the aspects that mark the exterior presence in the discourse.