Usos de assim na fala e na escrita dos chapecoenses

Abstract

The present study aimed at describing and analysing the multifunctional behaviour of the item assim (and periphrases) from two synchronic samples of the Portuguese spoken and written in the city of Chapecó, Santa Catarina. The samples were retrieved from the corpus of the project “Variation and Change of Portuguese in the western of Santa Catarina”. First, the uses of assim (and periphrases) were categorized according to formal and functional criteria. Next, the social dynamics of the uses of assim (and periphrases) were described based on speech samples of informants from Chapecó. Finally, a possible grammatical trajectory of assim (and periphrases) was postulated under the grammaticalization perspective based on the analysis of the speech and writing samples from Chapecó. The research is based on the Givon‟s linguistic functionalism (1995, 1979, 2002), Traugott (1982, 1989, 1995, 2001, 2007, 2010), Traugott and KÖnig (1991), Bybee (2003, 2010), among others. In the survey of descriptive studies of Brazilian Portuguese, such as Matelotta, Nascimento e Costa (1996), Lay-Thomasi (2006), Lopes-Damasio (2008), Souza (2009) and Bonfim (2014), the item assim, originally coming from Latin, began to reveal new grammatical categories from archaic Portuguese to contemporary Portuguese. It was identified 1184 occurrences of the item: 1147 occurrences in the speech sample and 37 in the writing sample. The results evidence that the item assim, in the samples analysed, follows the evolutionary path described in previous studies for Brazilian Portuguese. As regards the morphological criterion, within the speech sample, the categories adverb, conjunction and discursive marker are together, but within the writing sample, only occurrences of assim as adverbs and conjunctions were identified. With regard the syntactic criterion, in the speech sample, it was found that the position of the adverbial category is more flexible (initial, medial and final) with predominance of the medial position. The use of the item as conjunctions occurs in an exclusively medial syntactic position, and the MDs category also presented initial, medial and final positions with medial predominance. In the writing sample, the adverbial category also proved to be flexible (initial, medial and final) and fixed conjunctions were found in the medial position only. As for the semantic-pragmatic criterion, in the analyzed occurrences, it was revealed a semantic gradation of the three categories in which the item transits: (+) Concrete > (+ or-) concrete > (+) abstract. In the speech sample, the most concrete meanings are derived from the deictic adverbial category: temporal and spatial, while the more or less concrete meanings were those of the anaphoric and cataphoric adverbs and simultaneously anaphoric and cataphoric adverbs in addition to the conjunction assim que. On the other hand, the more abstract meanings are associated with both the conjunctions with the conclusive values, comparative values and with the strengthening of the adversative value, such as the MDs with the focal meaning, attenuator, clarification request flag, intensifier, mental construction frame signal and indicator of expressive content. In the written sample, the more or less concrete meanings were employed for the anaphoric and cataphoric adverbs and simultaneously anaphoric and cataphoric adverbs and also for the adverbial periphrases assim por diante with additive value. The most abstract meanings for the conjunction assim were the conclusive and the comparative meanings. The survey of social factors revealed that, as regards the age groups, speakers between the ages of 25 and 49 make use of more innovative functions of adverbs with more or less concrete values and the MDs with more abstract values. As for the education level, the most educated speakers (higher education) also employed the innovative functions of adverbs with more or less concrete values and the MDs with more abstract values more often. The male gender revealed greater recurrence of assim employed as adverbs with more or less concrete values and the MDs with more abstract values, suggesting that the item assim presents low social stigma.