Variação entre imperfeito do indicativo e imperfeito do subjuntivo em peças teatrais do século XIX ao século XXI

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the variation between the imperfect past in the indicative and the imperfect Subjunctive in Brazilian plays from the 19th to the 21st century in three functions: completive, conditional and concessive. Based on the theoretical and methodological assumptions of Variationist Sociolinguistics (LABOV, 1978, 1994, 2001, 2008 [1972] and 2010) and American Functionalism (GIVÓN, 1995 and 2001), through a social-functionalist perspective, we propose (i) to map the frequency of use of the forms under analysis by function; (ii) verify the performance of factors related to the time-aspect-modality complex (presence/absence of temporal marker; temporal relation; aspectual type of the verb in the nuclear sentence; aspectual type of the verb in the subordinate; factuality of the situation and modality of the nuclear sentence); (iii) deal with extralinguistic conditioning century, narrative voices and theatrical genre; and (iv) investigate whether there is stable variation or change in progress in each of the mapped functions. The corpus consists of eighteen plays, six from each century. After coding, the commutable data was subjected to statistical analysis in the GoldVarb X program (SANKOFF; TAGRIAMONTE; SMITH, 2005). With the statistical round, the significant groups were factuality of the subordinate sentence situation and voices of the narrative. For factuality of the subordinate sentence situation, the counterfactual factor conditions the imperfect subjunctive, while the factual and eventual factors condition the imperfect past tense of the indicative. In relation to the group of narrative voices factors, the antagonist and secondary characters factors tend to favour the use of the imperfect subjunctive while the protagonist factor conditions the use of the imperfect indicative. In correlation to the functions under analysis, the factors (i) factual, eventual and protagonist condition the imperfect of the indicative in the complementive and concessive functions; the factors (ii) counterfactual, antagonist and secondary characters motivate it in the conditional function.