Avaliação da variação ter/haver existenciais e da concordância verbal com haver existencial na língua escrita

Abstract

In order to analyze whether there are positive, negative or neutral social meanings associated with the use of the verbs ter and haver in existential contexts in the written language, we measure the subjective norms of university students from the Alagoas backlands in relation to the variation ter and haver in existential sentences and to the variation in verbal agreement with haver in writing. For that, we resorted to the Theory of Linguistic Variation (LABOV, 2008 [1972]) and adopted a direct approach (FASOLD, 1996; MORENO FERNÁNDEZ, 1998), considering seven parameters of social judgment: formal, conservative, sophisticated, beautiful, writing well, read a lot and study level. The data show a more neutral evaluation for the use of the verb ter, but a more positive assessment for the pluralization of the verb haver. The use of the verb ter is more associated with lower schooling, not being formal and not being conservative, whereas the pluralization of haver is more evaluated as formal, sophisticated and associated with the highest level of study.