Marco Antonio Martins (UFRN, Natal) / Benjamin Meisnitzer (JGU, Mainz)

The use of clitics in Brazilian Portuguese as an indicator for the development of an endogenous standard variety

Key words: language standardization; clitics; mass media; diachrony

Pluricentric languages are defined as languages with several coexisting normative centres, which serve as a reference for the respective diasystem. Traditionally, it has been assumed that pluricentric languages must have (1) an urban centre serving as a model and from which a linguistic policy leading to the emergence, formation, consolidation and expansion of the standard is developed. Therefore, (2) the respective standard variety comes to serve as the reference for school and media and (3) is codified in dictionaries, reference grammars or orthographic manuals (cf. Bierbach 2000). Nevertheless, Arden/Meisnitzer (2013) have shown that the codification of a standard language is more than anything else the result of a wide acceptance of a variety by a speech community as diatopically unmarked (≠ dialect) and diastratically and diaphasically prestigious. The ‘new’ emergent norm has to be considered as diastratically and diaphasically highly marked variety in Koch/Oesterreicher’s (2011) framework, a fact that explains its acceptance as reference point in situations of communicative distance and for written language.

While the existence of African Portuguese standard varieties – even in Angola or Mozambique – is still controversial due to a high acceptance of the European Portuguese Standard (EP) at school and its strong presence in the media (cf. Arden/Meisnitzer 2013: 38-43), the vast majority of scholars do argue for the existence of a distinct Brazilian standard variety. Nevertheless, it still remains somewhat problematic to insist upon the existence of such an endogenous Brazilian norm, since most of the Brazilian Portuguese speakers themselves still associate the EP Standard with what they refer to as norma padrão (‘linguistic standard norm’). Both assumptions cause(s) serious problems, as will be exemplified by the use of clitics. Even for highly educated speakers of Brazilian Portuguese it seems nearly impossible to accurately use the clitics according to the EP standard and vice-versa.  

Based on empirical data from corpora, our paper aims at showing and systematising the different evolutions of clitics in both standard varieties from a diachronic point of view. In a second step, we will categorise the respective uses according to occurrences in different registers – a parameter which has often been neglected in earlier work. We will therefore distinguish between forms which are typical of formal spoken BP (normas cultas), which potentially might integrate an endogenous standard, and uses which are typical of informal, low register spoken BP (norma popular).

The variables discussed include (1) the proclitic use of me, te and se in sentence-initial position (e.g. – Me deu dinheiro para comprar comida); (2) zero objects (e.g. Vou comprar Ø vs. EP Vou comprá-los), (3) subject pronouns in positions where the norm actually requires an anaphoric clitic (e.g. – Vi ele no cinema.) and (4) differences in the use of clitics for direct objects determined by the verbal regency with verbs such as mandar, fazer, deixar, ver, ouvir, sentir, among others.

Special emphasis will be given to journalistic discourse traditions and occurrence frequencies, since they significantly influence the ‘real’ uses of the speech community (cf. Arden/Meisnitzer 2013). The frequency of occurrences in these discourse traditions will allow us to argue in favour of a reorganization of the Portuguese language system and defend the idea of an emerging and emancipating Brazilian Standard, which culminates in works such as the Nova Gramática do Português Brasileiro (2010) by Ataliba the Castilho.

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