Pronomes de segunda pessoa do singular na escrita alagoana do século XX: um estudo dos pronomes objetos em cartas pessoais do escritor alagoano Graciliano Ramos

Abstract

In this work we analyze the variation of reference pronouns in the second-person singular in the function of verbal complement in 20th century personal letters written by the illustrious writer from Alagoas, Graciliano Ramos, in order to investigate which linguistic and extralinguistic factors influenced the advancement of the “você” paradigm forms and which forms were showed as a context of resistance to it and also how they promoted the “tu” paradigm strategies. For this purpose, we analyzed a total of 110 letters written between the period of 1910 and 1952 in correspondence with family members and a friend of the writer. As a theoretical and methodological framework for the construction of the research, we used historical sociolinguistics (ROMAINE, 1982; CONDE SILVESTRE, 2007; HERNÁNDEZ CAMPOY; CONDE SILVESTRE, 2012) which seeks to analyze variation and linguistic change over time and investigate how a process of concrete variation takes place in certain speech communities, groups, social networks, and individuals (ROMAINE, 1982). The independent linguistic variables analyzed were: (i) morphosyntactic context and (ii) subsystem treatment in subject position; and the extralinguistic variables: (i) period, (ii) type of relation between the senders, (iii) sub-genre of the letters, and (iv) interlocutor. In summary, we observed that complements of the “tu” paradigm had the highest percentage of period usage. However, the use of “você” strategies becomes much more frequent after 1930, as well as the use of null forms, surpassing the registration of the variants of the “tu” paradigm. This result showed that the increase in the frequency of complements of the “você” paradigm coincides with the period of implementation of “você” as a second person subject pronoun that occurred around the 1930s of the 20th century, reorganizing the pronominal framework of Brazilian Portuguese (RUMEU, 2012; 2019). Regarding the independent variables, we concluded that the use of the complements of the você paradigm was more favored by the dative morphosyntactic context, by the letters that have “você” as the exclusive subject, by the couple letter and by the asymmetric relationships, as pointed out in the interaction with the mother, the father and the son. While the forms of the “tu” paradigm were more favored by the accusative morphosyntactic context, by the letters that have “tu” as an exclusive subject, by love and friend letters and by the symmetrical relationships observed in the interlocution with the friend, the sisters and the girlfriend. The letters sent to the wife, although symmetrical, also favored the use of the strategies of the you paradigm. Finally, the family letter subgenre was considered statistically non-significant.