Estudo da concordância verbal com sujeito posposto na mídia impressa do Rio Grande Do Sul

Abstract

The present study is based on variationist sociolinguistics (LABOV, 2008 [1972]) and aims to analyze the variation of verbal agreement with a plural postponed third-person subject present on printed newspapers in Rio Grande Do Sul. The objective of the work in question is to analyze whether the internal linguistic conditioners (phonic salience / subject´s semantic trait) and external (type of newspaper / journalistic genre) influence or not the occurrence of verbal agreement with a plural postponed third-person subject. We present as specific objectives: to verify if the types of newspapers, considered [+ popular] and [- popular], have an influence on the occurrence of the plural third-person verbal agreement with postponed subject; observe whether the genders, considered as [+ monitored] and [-monitored], influence the occurrence of verbal agreement; examine whether the subject's semantic trait [+ human] and [- human] influences the occurrence of verbal agreement; to analyze whether the phonic salience variable influences the occurrence of third-person verbal agreement with a postponed subject. For that, we analyzed 40 editions of the newspapers Diário Gaúcho and Zero Hora: 20 of the newspaper considered [+ popular] and 20 of the newspaper considered [-popular]. The editions analyzed included the period from September 2020 to December 2020. To collect the data, we first analyzed the editions of the newspaper Diário Gaúcho and we found a total of 60 data. Regarding the excerpts from the Zero Hora newspaper, we coincidentally found the same number of data. Therefore, we analyzed 120 data in the newspapers. In the analysis of the results, we observed that in no occurrence of a postponed subject in the newspapers the lack of agreement occurred, contradicting what we expected. There was no variation since, in all data, there was an agreement mark both in the Diário Gaúcho considered [+ popular] and in Zero Hora considered [-popular]. One of the hypotheses that we may have in relation to not finding data of non-agreement in our work may be the process of standardization in writing, associated with the fact that the variable phenomenon verbal agreement is strongly stigmatized in comparison with other phenomena whose variation has already been registered in writing.