external influences on the morphosyntax of wh

Transcrição

Web-Revista SOCIODIALETO • www.sociodialeto.com.br
Bacharelado e Licenciatura em Letras • UEMS/Campo Grande
Mestrado em Letras • UEMS / Campo Grande
ISSN: 2178-1486 • Volume 2 • Número 2 • novembro 2012
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES ON THE MORPHOSYNTAX OF
WH-QUESTIONS IN BRAZILIAN VERNACULAR PORTUGUESE1
Patrícia Vieira Machado (Universidade de Coimbra)
[email protected]
ABSTRACT: This study analyzes a specific morphosyntactic structure in BVP: fronted WH-question
words followed by que, rather than the emphatic sequence é que as in European Portuguese, and
compares equivalent structures in West African languages, including creoles that were brought to Brazil
by slaves since the 16th century. Previous analyses of this structure, which interpret it as a case of copula
deletion in a cleft-clause or as a doubly-filled complementizer, are examined in this study and a new
interpretation is proposed based on the analysis of parallel structures in West African languages, whose
substrate influence on the formation of BVP is generally considered likely. Our proposal supports the
concept of a highlighter, or focus marker, presented in Holm (1980), to account for a feature found in a
number of restructured languages. This concept was later endorsed by Mello (1997) who concluded that
que following WH-words in BVP ―was reinterpreted during the restructuring of Portuguese as question
word + highlighter‖ (1997: 172).
KEYWORDS: Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese; highlighter, West African languages; copula deletion;
clefting.
RESUMO: Este estudo analisa uma estrutura morfosintáctica específica do PVB: interrogativas-QU
fronteadas seguidas de que, em vez da sequência enfática é que, como no Português Europeu, e compara
as estruturas equivalentes das línguas Afro-Ocidentais, incluindo os crioulos desta zona que foram
trazidos para o Brasil com o tráfico negreiro, desde o século XVI. Os estudos anteriores desta estrutura,
que a interpretam como um caso de eliminação da cópula em sentenças clivadas ou como
complementizador duplamente preenchido, são examinados nesta tese, e uma nova interpretação é
proposta, com base na análise das estruturas paralelas das línguas da África Ocidental, cujo substrato
provavelmente influenciou a formação do PVB. A nossa proposta defende o conceito, apresentado por
Holm (1980), de que um highlighter, ou marcador de foco, é responsável por uma característica
encontrada numa série de línguas reestruturadas. Esta noção foi posteriormente reafirmada por Mello
(1997), que concluiu que que no seguimento de palavras-WH, no PVB, ―foi reinterpretado durante a
reestruturação do Português como palavra-WH + highlighter‖ (1997:172).
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Português Vernacular Brasileiro; marcador de foco, línguas Afro-Ocidentais;
elipse da cópula; clivagem.
1
This paper consists of a part of the Master‘s thesis entitled ―External influences on the morphosyntax of
WH-questions in Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese‖ submitted in September 2012 to the Faculdade de
Letras da Universidade de Coimbra by Patricia Vieira Machado with the supervision of Professor John A.
Holm.
1
1.0 Introduction
The object of this study is to investigate the hypothesis of whether there were
external influences on the morphosyntax of WH-Questions in Brazilian Vernacular
Portuguese (BVP), focusing on the analysis of a particularity of WH-Questions in this
variety of Portuguese that is the occurrence of WH-words followed by que rather than é
que as in European Portuguese (EP) or Brazilian Standard Portuguese (BSP).
For this purpose, previous analyses of this BVP phenomenon with be surveyed,
taking into consideration the sociolinguistic history of the contact between European
Portuguese and African languages, both creoles and autochthonous languages, along
with a comparison of their equivalent morphosyntactic structures for this grammatical
feature.
1.1 Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese and Brazilian Standard Portuguese
Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese refers to what earlier studies called Popular
Brazilian Portuguese (cf. Holm 1992, and Lucchesi 2001). According to Holm: ―Today
BVP is the language usually spoken by lower class Brazilians with little education‖
(2004: 58) but also on informal occasions by some middle – and upper – class
Brazilians with more education who also speak BSP. BVP also includes the popular
dialects of BP spoken in the Afro-Brazilian communities studied by Baxter (1987,
Baxter et al. 1997) and Lucchesi et al. (2009).
In opposition to BVP, BSP refers to the prestigious variety of BP used by
Brazilians who had access to formal education. Usually, the speakers of this variety are
concentrated at the top of the social hierarchy.
The motivation behind this study of partially restructured Portuguese includes an
acknowledgment of BVP as a complete functional linguistic system, which is clear from
the fact that millions of people in Brazil have scant access to any other variety, even to
the standard variety of BP.
2
Spoken BSP has, over the centuries, been modified in several aspects, by
pressure from BVP, to the point that Azevedo affirms that:
Educated speakers are often ambivalent about the vernacular, caught as they
are between a prescriptive norm based largely on written models, spanning
several centuries of literary usage, and a linguistic reality that departs
considerably from that ideal model. (Azevedo 1989: 862)
2. WH-questions followed by que in BVP
Partial interrogative sentences2 with the structure é que began appearing in EP
and in BP in the second half of 19th century, according to Lopes-Rossi (1996: 1) as a
consequence of change in the focus structures in Portuguese, when cleft clauses began
to be used. This type of interrogative occurred in both varieties the same way, with no
restrictions on the type of element in the sentence connected to the WH-word, type of
verb or subject.
BVP WH-questions followed by que have been analyzed in two different ways
by linguists. First are those who take into consideration language contact as part of the
process of formation of contemporary BVP taking a diachronic perspective, weighing
its socio-historical background and comparing it with languages such as creoles that
seem likely to have had some influence on the development of BVP. Second are the
linguists, mostly Brazilian scholars, who observe this structure in BVP synchronically
and without considering the origin of this phenomenon, but focus solely on its
morphosyntax.
This specific BVP morphosyntactic feature, the WH-word followed by a
highlighter que (1), is one of several features that have gone through a restructuring
possibly due to influence from African languages as argued further on.
2
Intumbo (2007: 101) defines partial interrogative sentences by the presence of an interrogative phrase at
the beginning of the sentence. A ―total interrogative sentence‖, or ―polar question‖ is a question which
expects one of two answers: ―yes‖ or ―no‖.
Total interrogatives, or ―polar interrogatives demand information about the polarity of the proposition
realized by the clause: is it positive (‗yes‘) or negative (‗no‘)‖ (Caffarel et al., eds. 2004 :615).
3
(1) Por que que é
why
assim?
HL COP this way
‗Why is it like this?‘
In 1997, Mello (pp. 170-3) defined it as ―interrogative, relative and indeterminate
pronouns, interrogative phrases and even nouns … followed by que ‗that‘ with an
apparent null meaning‖ and comments that this structure (2) ―resembles question
particles, complementizers and highlighters in Haitian Creole French [HA] and in the
Portuguese-based creoles of West-Africa‖ (Capeverdean, CV; São Tomense, ST), as in
the sentences (3); (4) and (5) respectively.
(2) BVP Quem que chegou? (Mello 1997: 171)3
who HL arrive.PRF
‗Who arrived?‘
(3) HA
kimoun ki
who
malad? (DeGraff 1992:91 apud Mello 1997: 172)4
HL sick.ADJ 5
‗Who is sick?‘
(4) CV
Falo-m ken k’
sej (Cardoso 1989: 103 apud Mello 1997: 172)6
tell-me who HL leave.PRF
‗Tell me who left‘
3
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (167). My gloss.
5
According to Holm, whether ―malad‖ is an adjective is ―debatable‖, because it ―behaves like verb‖.
6
4
4
(5) ST
kene ku bi
(ai)
ni ke
no oti (Ferraz & Valkhoff 1975: 25)7
who HL come.PRF there in house our yesterday
‗Who came to our house yesterday?‘
Mello (1997: 172) states that this construction was ―reinterpreted during the
restructuring of Portuguese as question word + highlighter by speakers of African
languages‖ in Brazil. This suggests that the emergence of this construction was a
strategy to fill in a structural gap between their first languages and the Portuguese
spoken by the colonizers.
Another important contribution of Brazilian linguists to this problem are two
publications from the Projeto de Estudo da Norma Urbana Linguística Culta do Brasil,
known as the NURC Project, that consists of grammatical descriptions of material
recorded from 1970 to 1978 apparently with the intention of reevaluating the grammar
of spoken Brazilian Standard Portuguese according to actual contemporary usage of the
language in Brazil.
In the first, Kato et al. (2002), the type of construction with a WH-word
followed by que is analyzed as a ―cleft question: ... the WH-word appears at the
beginning of the sentence followed by é que (which is a usual construction in other
languages and in EP) or only by que, the last being an option typical in Brazilian
Portuguese, derived from a cleft clause without a copula‖ (Kato et al. 2002: 316, my
translation).8
In the second article, Braga et. al (2009), published seven years later, this
structure was reassessed as a doubly-filled complementizer that may occur in both main
and subordinate clauses: (6), (7).
7
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (173) apud Mello 1997 (p. 172). My gloss.
Original: ―Pergunta clivada: ... o pronome-Q aparece no início da sentença seguido de é que (construção
comum em outras línguas e no PE) ou apenas por que, esta última, típica do português do Brasil, derivada
de uma clivada sem cópula‖.
8
5
(6) BVP
Por que que a
senhora gostou
dessa
peça? (Braga et al. 2009:
270)9
why
HL DET madam like.PRF of.DEM play
‗Why did you (madam) like this play?‘
(7) BVP Você sabe o que que é
2s
UPC? (Braga et al. 2009: 270)10
know what HL COP UPC
‗Do you know what UPC is?‘
The same analysis is proposed by Ribeiro (2009: 203) who mentions, but without
explanation, the existence of a cleft interrogative that without the copula would result in
a doubly-filled complementizer. The analysis Ribeiro proposes is focused on a specific
Afro-Portuguese dialect of Bahia that can be included in what is called Brazilian
Vernacular Portuguese (BVP), illustrated by her examples, such as (8).
(8) BVP ondé que eu planto, num sai
where HL 1s plant
nada... (Ribeiro 2009: 203)11
NEG result nothing
‗Where I plant, nothing grows‘
Oliveira (2011: 75), a Brazilian generativist, analyzes BVP WH-questions followed by
que as the legacy of grammatical control focus12, present in the grammar of West
African languages. This type of focus is not controlled by the intention of the speaker
and ―does not fit into a focus typology – such as ‗contrastive focus, for example -, and
does not bring about a marked intonation of focus‖.
9
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (61c). My gloss and translation.
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (61d). My gloss and translation.
11
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (54b). My gloss and translation.
12
The focus classification of ―grammatical control focus‖ was developed and defined by Hyman and
Watters in 1984.
10
6
The possibility of WH-questions followed by que being a cleft interrogative that
without the copula would result in a doubly-filled complementizer is denied by Oliveira
(2011) who analyzes it as a monoclausal structure followed by a focus marker, and
raises the hypothesis of influence from the West African languages in BVP.
Question words preceded or followed by a single-word highlighter (or focus
marker) are also common among creoles with superstrates other than Portuguese whose
substrates are African languages, as we can see below in Jamaican Patwa Creole
English (JC), Papiamentu Creole Spanish (PP) and in Negerhollands Creole Dutch
(NH). Holm (2000: 203) points out that the ―creole highlighters represent a syntactic
category in the substrate languages that does not correspond very closely to anything in
the superstrate languages‖.
(9) JC
Young man, a wa
du
yu? (Patrick 2007: 140) 13
young man HL what bother 2s
‗Young man, what is it tha‘s bothering you?/wrong with you‘
(10) PP
Ta kiko bo
ta
hasi? (Kouwenberg & Ramos-Michel 2007: 321)14
HL what 2s PRES do
‗What are you doing?‘
(11) NH
Da wie bin daeso? (Kleine 2007: 266)15
HL who COP there
‗Who is it that is there?‘
13
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (62).
15
14
7
In Balanta (BAL), one of the substrate languages of the Portuguese creole of Guinea
Bissau that was taken to Brazil during the colonial period, ―fronted question words are
optionally highlighted, i.e. preceded by the highlighter nge‖ as noted by Holm &
Intumbo (2009: 249):
(12) BAL
(Nge) anuma a tum
malu? (ibid.)16
HL where 2s put.PRF rice
‗Where did you put the rice?‘
On the other hand, the synchronic approach, here represented by Brazilian linguists
Kato & Mioto (2005 a, b), who describe this structure as a doubly-filled
complementizer and affirm that an alternative description of this phenomenon is to
define it as the deletion of the copula belonging to the highlighter construction é que
(2005b:173).
3. Cleft interrogative sentences in African languages
Holm & Machado (2010: 54) affirm that ―clefting is attested in several African
languages since the 1960s, including some creoles, although linguists working on
African languages did not always use this terminology to refer to this syntactical
feature‖. They present samples from Bailey (1966), demonstrating how in Jamaican
Patwa CE prominence is given to a constituent by bringing it to the fronted position,
which Bailey calls ―inversion‖.
Holm and Machado (2010: 54) note that ―Yoruba word order is subject-verbobject, so the object in sentence … [13] is kí ‗what‘, which has been fronted and then
followed by the highlighter ni to give it prominence‖:
16
8
(13) YOR
? 
what HL 3p
sell to 3s
‗What did they sell him?‘ (Rowlands 1969:26)17
The reason why clefting as a focus strategy is so widespread in Africa is probably
linked to the fact that while in intonational languages such as Portuguese, phonological
stress on a constituent of a sentence is enough to bring it into focus, while in tone
languages, like most African languages, the higher (or sometimes lower) pitch that
accompanies greater stress in intonation languages is incompatible with the tone
patterns in a tone language.
Along with clefting, there are other ways to express focus morphologically,
broadly used in African languages, which is the use of focus markers, or highlighters.
Here, though, we will look at West African languages (including creoles). Concerning
highlighters, Hyman & Watters reinforce that:
This kind of morphological marking is particularly common in tone
languages, where prosody is inefficient as a means of signaling focus. Most
languages appear to have some means of marking focus syntactically. In
English and in many languages there is a cleft construction. Often there is the
possibility of rearranging word order for focus purposes. (1984: 238)
4. Movement and in situ languages
Languages can be divided into two groups according to whether they front WHwords: (A) in situ languages, in which the presence of a WH-word does not require a
change in the structure and the question is made through prosodic means, or the
occurrence of a question word in the position of the word it is replacing within the
17
Renumbered. Originally (apud Holm & Machado 2010: 54), sentence (5).
9
original sentence, and (B) fronting languages, in which WH-questions require subjectverb inversion.
A very important study as to whether Portuguese is originally a movement or in
situ language is the diachronic study of WH-questions by Lopes-Rossi (1996), who
affirms that from the 16th to the 18th century, there were only two types of WHquestions, one that required inversion, which can be verified even in sentences with a
compound verbal phrase such as (14) and the second one with ―que é o que‖. LopesRossi concludes that EP in this period was clearly a WH-movement language.
(14) Que tem Deus de ver comigo? (Gil Vicente 1562 [1970])18
what have God see with me
‗What does God have to do with me?‘
Regarding the structural differences between contemporary BSP and EP in the
formation of interrogative sentences and WH-movement, Brito and Duarte (2003: 471472) state that in standard EP, WH-questions presuppose subject-verb inversion if the
subject is nominalized (15), unless the verb is preceded by the highlighter construction é
que as in sentence (16) below or the interrogative constituent is formed by an
interrogative quantifier or specifier plus a noun lexically produced as in (17).
(15) EP
Onde trabalha a
where work
Maria? (Brito & Duarte. 2003: 471)19
DET Maria
‗Where does Maria work?‘
(16) EP/BSP Onde é
que a
Maria trabalha? (Brito & Duarte 2003: 472)20
where COP REL DET Maria work
18
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (8) apud Lopes-Rossi (1996: 4).
My gloss and translation. Page number of Gil Vicente 1562 is missing in Lopes-Rossi 1996: 4.
19
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (41b). My gloss and translation.
20
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (45a). My gloss and translation.
10
‗Where is it that Maria works?‘
(17) EP/BSP Quantos
livros
a
Maria leu? (Brito & Duarte 2003: 471)21
how many book.pl DET Maria read.PRF
‗How many book did Maria read?‘
Holm (2004:124) gives a detailed diachronic explanation of the phenomenon in BVP,
comparing its occurrence in BVP with the EP variety, which is more restrictive in
options of WH-question structures, because of its obligatory rule of subject-verb
inversion (18), unless the question word is emphasized by é que, in which case é is
obligatory, unlike BVP (19). Moreover, Holm shows that in BVP there are several
options for WH-question structure, including one which is ungrammatical in EP, the
construction with a question word plus que.
(18) EP
Onde mora você? (Holm 2004: 124)22
where live 2s
‗Where do you live?‘
(19) EP
Onde é
que você mora? (Holm 2004: 124)23
where COP REL 2s
live
‗Where is it that you live?‘
Mello observes that ―subject-verb inversion is not commonly found in BVP‖ (Mello
1997: 167) and comments that the construction (20), which is ungrammatical in EP, not
only is acceptable but it is the standard form in BP.
(20) BSP/*EP Onde você mora? (Holm 2004: 124)24
where 2s
live
21
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (43a). My gloss and translation.
23
24
22
11
‗Where do you live?‘
Lucchesi and Lobo (1996: 311) also note that the interrogative VS pattern, dominant
until the 18th century, evolved in BP to SV, the word order currently used in 90 percent
of BP questions, either partial or total, according to them.
It is possible that BVP has allowed the disappearance of WH-movement with
WH-V-S word order due to the importance of the realization of the highlighter, that was
embedded in the reinterpreted interrogative construction with é que, in which the WHmovement is unnecessary.
Mello (1997: 168) affirms that ―according to Rossi (1993:331) the lack of verb
and question word movement in BVP interrogatives is a consequence of the
impoverishment of verbal morphology‖ and justifies her disagreement with the
following reference:
Holm (1992: 62) points out that the lack of subject-verb inversion in interrogative clauses is
a common feature of Atlantic creoles and several of their African substrate languages.
Holm‘s analysis seems more convincing than Rossi‘s and has the further advantage of
relating BVP to its history of contact with African languages and its similarities to the
Portuguese-based creoles. (Mello 1997: 168)
5. Highlighters in African languages, in Caribbean creoles and in BVP
5.1 Highlighters in West African creoles
In African creoles, such as Cape Verdean (CV) and Guinea Bissau Kriyol (GB),
the same structure appears in WH-questions and is analyzed by Baptista et al. (2007:
71) who point out that ―in CV the relativizer k(i) occurs very frequently after question
words; with the presence of the (optional) copula e, it constitutes a highlighter
construction with e ki‖ (21). ―In GB, Kihm (1994: 229-30) points out that in
interrogative sentences (excluding echo questions), question words placed on the left
periphery of the clause must be highlighted by means of the relative marker ku”
(Baptista et al. 2007:71), as in (22).
12
(21) CV
Kont
(e)
k’
bo kre? (Cardoso 1989: 104)25
how much (COP) HL 2s want
‗How much do you want?‘
(22) GB
Nunde ku i pui
miju n‘el? (Peck 1988: 38)26
Where HL 3s put.PRF corn in 3s
‗Where did he put the corn?‘
A very similar construction is found in GB, as one of the means of conveying emphasis
in this language is with a construction with ke or ki (23)
(23) GB
ami k
na
bay (Wilson 1962: 33)27
1s HL PROG go
‗I am going (it is I who…) / Sou eu que vou‘
Wilson (1962: 33) states that ―the emphatic use of ke or ki has the features of a relative
clause directly preceded by its antecedent, and it is this antecedent which is given
exclusive emphasis‖, as in (24) and (25).
(24) GB
s
k
 misti
(Wilson 1962: 33)
COP HL 1s want
‗It‘s this I want / É isto que quero‘
(25) GB
awonti
k
 bi
(Wilson 1962: 33)
yesterday HL 1s come
‗It‘s yesterday I came / Foi ontem que vim‘
Oliveira & Souza (2009: 258) suggest that ―Capeverdean is moving towards
compulsory clefting of WH-phrases‖28, as occurs in Guinea Bissau Kriyol, as most of
25
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (151) apud Holm & Patrick 2007: 71.
27
Sentences (44). (45) and (46) are not originally numbered. The glosses for these three sentences are
mine.
26
13
the WH-questions occur in cleft clauses. She comments, furthermore, that ―clefted WHquestions‘ in Capeverdean are incredibly similar to BP clefted WH-questions‖29,
probably because of the absence of a copula between interrogative pronouns/ adverbs
and the emphasizer que.
5.2. Caribbean creoles and BVP
In two recent studies on focus marking in Atlantic creoles, Jorge & Oliveira
(2010) and Oliveira & Holm (2011), present evidence that the phenomenon of WHquestion words followed by a focus particle is present in the grammar of several West
African languages, emphasizing the importance of not excluding a historical perspective
from linguistic studies, as a way to discover the origin of features in languages resulting
from contact and as a tool to enrich such studies with relevant linguistic information,
allowing comparisons to unravel the reasons for the similarities among them.
Caribbean Creoles that allow WH-phrase fronting include: Jamaican CE (26),
Papiamentu Creole Spanish (27) and in Negerhollands Creole Dutch (28), Haitian
Creole French (29) and Miskito Coast Creole English (30):
(26) JC a-wa Anti sen fi mi ? (Holm 1980: 368)30
A
wa Anti sen
fi
mi
HL QW aunt send for me
‗O que que Anti enviou pra mim?‘
‗What did aunt send me?‘
(27) PP
Ta kiko bo
ta
hasi? (Kouwenberg & Michel 2007: 321)
HL what 2s PRES do
28
Original: ―... caboverdiano caminha para uma focalização obrigatória de sintagmas WH ...‖
Original: ―WH-clivadas em caboverdiano são ... incrivelmente similares a WH clivadas em PB...‖.
30
Renumbered. Originally, sentence (7). My gloss and translation.
29
14
‗What are you doing?‘
(28) NH Da wie bin daeso? (Kleine 2007: 266)
HL who COP there
‗Who is it that is there?‘
(29) HA
kimoun ki
who
malad? (DeGraff 1992:91)
HL sick.ADJ31
‗Who is sick?‘
(30) MCC Bot a
wa
tu duu ? (Holm 1980: 36832).
But HL what to do
‗But what do I do?‘
There is register of several slave vessels that on the way to Brazil were redirected to the
Caribbean Islands, either hijacked by the first English slave traders or, after slave
trafficking was abolished in 1831, as a way to escape the Royal Navy, which was
charged with preventing the slave trade.
Most of the Caribbean Islands were colonized during the 17th century by the
English, French, Spanish and Dutch, whose languages served as the superstrates for
several creoles, along with the African substrate languages that the slaves brought.
5.3 West African creoles
Further evidence for the thesis that African languages exerted influence on the
formation of Brazilian Portuguese, not only with lexical but morphosyntactic is the
existence of the same feature observed above in several Atlantic creoles whose
31
32
Whether it is an adjective is ―debatable; behaves like verb‖ (Holm, personal communication)
15
substrates were some of the same West African languages, including the young creoles
from Guinea Bissau (31), Cape Verde (32), Príncipe (33) and São Tomé (34), which
were brought to Brazil by slaves.
(31) GB Kin
ki ten tera?
(Oliveira & Holm 2011: 33) 33
who HL to have land
‗Who has land?‘
(32) CV Kem ku odja ? (Oliveira & Holm 2011: 33) 34
Who HL see.PRF.2S
‗Who did you see?‘
(33) PC kwa ki txi mese a? (Oliveira & Holm 2011: 33)35
thing HL 2s want QW
‗What do you want?‘
(‗Que coisa que você quer?‘/ ‗Que que você quer?‘)
(34) ST Andji (ku) bô be (Oliveira & Holm 2011: 34) 36
Where HL 2s go
‗Where do you go?‘
5.4 Balanta, GB CP and EP
33
35
Original translation into BVP by Oliveira & Holm.
36
34
16
In a comparative study of GB CP (an Afro-Romance creole with Portuguese as
lexical source); its adstrate and main substrate, Balanta, (an African language of the
Niger-Congo branch); and its superstrate EP, Intumbo (2007: 101-2; 2008) analyses
several morphosyntactic features in these three languages, including the similarities
between their WH-questions constructions.
He notes that partial interrogatives37 in GB CP are usually emphasized by the
particle ku and that the SVO order is kept in the question, as seen in (35):
(35) GB
(Anta) nunde ku bu [pui
so
arus]? (Intumbo 2007: 101)38
where HL 2s PUT.PRF rice
Intumbo points out that this structure in GB CP is parallel to that of its equivalent in
Balanta, which has an optional highlighter 39 nge which is optional, as in (36) and (37)
below.
(36) BAL
(Nge) anuma a tum malu? (Intumbo 2007: 101)40
HL
where 2s put rice
(37) BAL
(Nge) wi
a us -te?
HL where 2s buy REL ‗What did you buy?‘ (ibid.)41
37
Renumbered. Originally, (228) . My gloss and translation.
39
The author refers to ir as a ―particula de realce‖ (Intumbo 2007: 101).
40
41
38
17
Furthermore, he notes that in EP it is possible to emphasize the WH-question word with
the emphatic sequence é que which is parallel to the GB CP particle ku, although in this
creole, there is no copula in the construction:
(38) EP
Onde (é que) puseste o arroz? (ibid.)42
Where is REL put DET rice
6. Conclusions
Considering the high percentages of the African population in Brazil in
comparison to integrated Amerindians and Europeans during the centuries of slave labor
and the nature of contact among them in the newly formed Brazilian society since the
16th century, we cannot disregard that African languages may have played an important
role in the formation of BVP.
As has been seen in the previous sections, many of the West African languages
brought to Brazil, both creoles and their substrates, have a highlighter preceding or
following a WH-word. This suggests, paraphrasing Holm (1980: 372) that que ―was the
handiest European word available to Africans [in Brazil] to fill a syntactic need‖43.
To conclude, the highlighter we have examined was born of an African
syntactic concept fulfilled by a variety of mismatched European words. Its
only identity being syntactic, this highlighter is an amazing chameleon that
has blended almost imperceptibly into the surrounding lexicon of creole
42
Holm 1980: 372:
This construction seems quite French until the use of sé above is compared to that in the more African
predicate-clefting structure:
32. /sé travay 1 (i) ap travay/ ‗He‘s working (Bynoe-Andriolo and Yillah 1975:234).
This suggests that Haitian sé is not simply French c’est, but rather what was the handiest
European word available to Africans in Haiti to fill a syntactic need, just as a and iz were the
handiest words for their brothers and cousins in Jamaica.
43
18
languages stretching halfway round the world, from the Indian Ocean to the
Caribbean (and possibly the Pacific). (Holm 1980: 373)
Finally, it is essential for furthering the study of BVP that other morphosyntactic
features of this variety that have long been considered mere mistakes of illiterate
Brazilian speakers should receive the same attention as WH-questions followed by que
here, in order to assist in the recovery of the origins of the grammar of this variety,
never disregarding the rich sociolinguistic history of BP, in which language contact
clearly played an important role.
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Recebido Para Publicação em 30 de outubro de 2012.
Aprovado Para Publicação em 23 de novembro de 2012.
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