A alternância subjuntivo/indicativo em orações independentes na fala do Cariri

Abstract

This study investigates the alternation between the indicative and subjunctive verbal moods in independent clauses in the spoken Portuguese of Cariri, region located in the south of the Brazilian state of Ceará. The data were extracted from PROFALA Project, which includes the database "The spoken Portuguese in Ceará", headquartered at the Federal University of Ceará, in the Graduate Program in Linguistics. This corpus consists of approximately 125 hours corresponding to 176 interviews with informants stratified by age group, sex and instruction level. The main objective of this research is to describe the variation between subjunctive and indicative in dubitatives independent clauses, analyzing environments that restrict the use of the subjunctive, as well as environments that promote switching between moods. Four linguistic variables were selected - morphophonological default verb, doubter marker, tense of the clause, verb type of the clause, besides the classical social variables - sex / gender, education and age. Thus, it analyzes the performance of these groups of factors in favor of the use of the subjunctive or alternation with the indicative mood in the independent clauses. The data were quantified using the statistical program GOLDVARB X and analyzed according to the Theory of Variation and Change, through studies of Labov (1968 , 1972 , 1994, 2001 , 2008), since they conceive language as a heterogeneous system susceptible to pressure of use and, therefore, the various processes of variation. The results indicate all linguistic variables controlled in this study as favoring subjunctive alternation in analyzed speech community. All indices showed high percentage in favor of the use of the subjunctive variant inindependent clauses in the spoken language of Cariri. Concerning social variables, only gender / sex was selected by the statistical program, with results that indicate men use more subjunctive forms than women in speech Portuguese of Cariri .