A expressão de obrigação em Fortaleza/CE: Ter, Dever e Precisar em variação

Abstract

This research at an analysis of the expression of obligation by means of auxiliary modal verbs ter; dever and precisar; considering both linguistic and extralinguistic elements; in the speech of the city of Fortaleza; located in the Brazilian state of Ceará For the analysis of the linguistic facts; Labov’s Variation Theory was adopted Moreover; as an attempt to integrate the principles of markedness and iconicity to the results; functionalism was also considered In order to investigate this variation phenomenon; 24 instances were adopted from the speech corpus Português Oral Culto de Fortaleza (PORCUFORT) collected between the years of 1993 and 1994 The study revealed that; during the instauration of an obligation; ter is the preferred form among speakers; since it represents 77% of occurrences out of a total of 322 data It is followed by the variant dever; which corresponds to 15% of the data The variant precisar corresponds to 08% of the data This piece of research also revealed that elements such as age group; type of obligation; time; and illocutionary force appear to be significant for the use of the variants ter and dever; the latter form also being conditioned by the element group entitled type of deontic target On the other hand; the variant precisar seemed to be conditioned only by type of deontic source