Construções de foco no português: observações sobre a diacronia das interrogativas-q

Abstract

The article discusses the change observed in the diachrony of Wh-questions in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), elaborated previously by Duarte (1992), Lopes-Rossi (1993) and others, in which it can be noticed a transition from a postverbal subject favored system to a preverbal subject strong preference. Supported by these studies and Nicolau de Paula (2016)’s, theater plays from XIX and XX centuries were analyzed in order to investigate the relation between the subject position (pre or post verbal), the entry of the cleft in the BP’s system and the informational structure, based on Duarte (1992) and Lopes-Rossi (1993)’s hypothesis. As previous studies showed, a significant increase in the occurrences of the cleft structure and the development of the preference for preverbal subject were identified. The occurrence of preverbal sentences in the initial time periods analyzed, however, leads to a hypothesis in which the preverbal subject was already part of the language system, although in limited contexts. The analysis addresses the reduced cleft and the Q in situ in BP, comparing it to the European Portuguese (EP), that kept the prevalence of postverbal subjects and does not present the reduced cleft or Q in situ (NICOLAU DE PAULA, 2016). As a second part, this paper presents the preliminar results of a study that intends to relate pragmatical aspects with the syntatic pattern of Whquestions in portuguese.