A noção de "cordialidade" e o pronome possessivo de segunda pessoa em PB com um caso de variação/mudança motivada por conceptualização cultural

Abstract

This thesis contains analyses and results referring to a doctoral research. The intent of this academic study is to investigate the possibility of cordiality, defined by Holanda (2015) as an aversion to impersonality in treatment and relationships, manifesting itself in phenomena of linguistic variation and change, specifically in the forms of the pronouns teu/seu of Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The hypothesis of this thesis is that cordiality may be understood as a cultural cognitive model (SHARIFIAN, 2011; DʼANDRADE, 1987; STRAUSS; QUINN; 1998; KRONENFELD, 2008; BENNARDO; MUNKC, 2014) to which it is possible to relate the phenomenon of choosing the possessive seu in place of teu which is closer in position (BENVENISTE, 1966). In order to match the everyday Portuguese spoken by Brazilians at the moment of the aforementioned linguistic variation, as dated by Rumeu (2013) and others, regarding plays as attempts to reconstruct the oral tradition (BERLINCK; BARBOSA; MARINE, 2008), this research has used works of the comedy genre of customs of Brazilian writers, ranging from 1737-1896. For data analysis, the Abbyy Fine Reader 15 OCR and AntConc programs were used to identify the terms analyzed, their context of occurrence and the semantic resources associated with them, that is, the forms of treatment as revealing the context of occurrence of the term (KERBRAT-ORECCHIONI, 2011). It is understood, by the definition of Holanda (2015), that informality, personality and affectivity make up a prototypical concept of cordiality. Therefore, the more BP distances itself from European Portuguese (EP), and Brazilian productions become more adapted to the Brazilian audience, through adaptation to a collective conceptualization, the more the speaker chooses forms of communication which are more personal and intimate. What is more, the 3rd person possessive pronoun takes over the 2nd person position. In other words, as the text becomes more cordial, it is possible to observe more occurrences of seu as a 2nd person pronoun, first competing with vosso, and after replacing it, competing with teu. Thus, the result of this research shows the possibility of understanding cordiality as a cultural model of aversion to impersonal distancing, as well as the possibility of linking semantic properties to the occurrences of the possessive pronoun seu in the 2nd person. From the analysis of the data in light of the theoretical framework, an explanatory theoretical model for the phenomenon of choosing the possessive seu has been proposed here as well as a complementay approaches to the variationist analyses. Finally, this study recommends a cultural conceptualization as a cognitive motivator of a phenomenon of linguistic variation and change and contributing to a better understanding of the role of culture for the understanding and realization of language in various contexts of use.