The Role of Frequency in First-Person Plural Variation in Brazilian Portuguese: Nós vs. a gente

Abstract

This paper investigates the conditioning of the variation between two first-person plural forms in contemporary spoken Brazilian Portuguese, an older pronoun nós used with first-person plural agreement and a newer pronoun a gente, derived from an NP meaning 'the people', used with third-person singular agreement. This is part of a broader change in the language involving the breakdown of verbal agreement as third-person marking extends to the domains of first-and second-person. We consider the conditioning of use of these forms in spoken Brazilian Portuguese from Fortaleza and uncover a phenomenon that as yet has not been noted in relation to this variation, namely frequency. We find that the high type frequency of a gente contributes to the spreading use of this form, and the high token frequency of nós in specific constructions slows it down. We predict that these highly frequent constructions (such as nos temos 'we have', digamos 'let's say' and vamos + V-INF 'let's V') may remain a last vestige of nós in Brazilian Portuguese as a gente comes to take over the realm of first-person plural.

On the grammaticalization of personal pronouns

“…In all the varieties the noun phrase a gente ‘the people’ has been grammaticalized to a first person plural pronoun (Merlan 2006). As we will see in Section 3, in Brazilian Portuguese, a gente ‘we’ has – more than in European Portuguese – replaced the earlier pronoun nós , also serving both as a first person plural pronoun (‘we’) and as an impersonal pronoun (‘one’; Albán & Freitas 1991; Schwegler 1993: 152; Merlan 2006: 235; Travis & Silveira 2009; Martelotta & Cezario in press).…”

“…Being a stage III category in European Portuguese, a gente is approaching a stage IV situation in Brazilian Portuguese (Albán & Freitas 1991 ;Schwegler 1993 : 152;Merlan 2006 : 235 ;Travis & Silveira 2009 ;Martelotta & Cezario in press) : It has become a regular member of a newly emerging paradigm of personal pronouns and, accordingly, is used generally in this new function (see Section 2.3.2.1 above). In addition, the innovated category may lose morphosyntactic properties that were characteristic of its former category status but are no longer in line with the morphosyntax of the new paradigm.…”

Grammaticalisation in social context: The emergence of a new English pronoun

“…A common pathway for the development of pronouns from nouns referring generically to ‘person’ or ‘people’ is for the formerly generic noun to begin to be used with specific reference to groups of individuals. From this it comes to be used as a first person plural pronoun referring to a group of individuals that includes the speaker, perhaps after an earlier stage when the pronoun has indefinite reference (Travis and Silveira : 249; King, Martineau and Mougeon ). Examples, in addition to the Old English man pronoun, include the emergence of French on as an indefinite and first person plural pronoun from Latin home , ‘man’ (King, Martineau and Mougeon ), and Brazilian Portuguese a gente , ‘we’, from the noun a gente, ‘the people’ (Zilles ).…”

We is More Than You Plus I. The Interpretation of the We-Forms in Internal Business Communications

“…During the last decades, the we-form has been studied within different theoretical frameworks: general linguistics (Simon and Wise [11], Kertz et al [12], Kursell [13], Van Compernolle [14]), contrastive linguistics (e.g., Dieltjens and Heynderickx [15], Baumgarten [16], Zwets [17], Posio [18], Travis and Silveira [19], Borthen [20], De Cock [21]), intercultural studies (e.g., Connor-Linton et al [22], Connor-Linton [23], Duszak [24], Carciu [25], Liebscher et al [26], Sadeghi et al [27], Lee [28]), sociolinguistics (e.g., Mühlhäusler and Harré [29]), psychology (Karremans and Van Lange [30], Rohrbaugh et al [31], Zimmermann et al [32]), genre analysis (Li and Ge [33]), pragmatics (Maitland and Wilson [34]), (critical) discourse analysis (e.g., Fairclough and Wodak [35], De Cillia et al [36]), narratives (Marcus [37]), EFL (Luzón [38], Vergaro [39]), etc.…”

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