A variação da concordância verbal com a primeira pessoa do plural nós e a gente no português falado em Fortaleza - Ceará

Abstract

This research investigates verbal agreement (VA) variation in the first person of plural form (1PP) in popular speech in the city of Fortaleza - Ceará grounded on the Linguistic Variation and Change Theory (Weinreich; Labov; Herzog, [1968] 2006) and Labov ([1972] 2008). For this purpose, it reckons recent research on the investigated phenomenon (Naro, Scherre e Yacovenco 2018a, 2018b; Carvalho, Freitas e Favacho, 2020; Freitas, Rodrigues e Santos 2021; Carvalho e Santos, 2023). From that, it describes and analyzes linguistic and social factors which influences the use of variants marked (Nós ficamos/A gente fica) and the ones not marked (Nós

fica/A gente ficamos) by the standard CV. The sample is composed by 85 informants and has considered DID- like inquiries (Dialogue between Informant and Documenter) of the Project The Popular Oral Normal of Fortaleza

- CE (NORPOFOR). Informants were stratified according to sex (a: men and b: women), age group (age group I: 15 to 25; age group II: 26 to 49 and age group III: over 50 years), and education level (a: 0-4; b: 5-8; c: 9-11 years). Methodological procedures were: collection, codification, and quantitative-qualitative data analysis through the R statistics program (R Core Team, 2020). As linguistics variables, it controlled the subject explicitness, tense and verbal paradigm type in the indicative mood, and referent determination. Overall, it found 3463 data regarding the phenomenon in question. Of this total, 2.607 instances are a gente [Ø] (A gente ficou [75,28%]), 61 are a gente with -mos (A gente ficamos [1,76%]), 670 occurrences of nós with - mos (Nós ficamos [19,35%]), and 125 are nós without -mos (Nós ficou [3,61%]). Given the low number of data without the standard CV, the analysis became binary. The number of data came to be 3.277, in which a gente without the standard CV stands out (79,55%) compared to nós with the standard CV (20,45%). The referent determination pointed out that a gente is more used for both generic (81,63%) and specific reference (76,93%), the subject explicitness highlighted that a gente is preferred for explicit subject (80,27%), and the tense and verbal paradigm type in the indicative mood showed that the present with the same morphology as the past (nós chegamos/a gente chega) is more associated to a gente (88,87%). The present different from the past (nós temos/a gente tem) is more associated to a gente (75,38%). The past with the same morphology as the present (nós chegamos/a gente chegou) indicated balance between both forms nós (41,89%) and a gente (58,11%). The past different from the present (nós fomos/a gente foi) favors a gente (60%) in relation to nós (40%), and the imperfect tense (nós falávamos/a gente falava) favors a gente [Ø] (85,77%). Results show that the youth (15 to 25 years), with higher level of education (9 to 11 years), and women (85,11%) favors the use of a gente [Ø]in the sample.