Abstract

NEGRAO, Esmeralda Vailati  and  VIOTTI, Evani. THE CONTACT BETWEEN KIMBUNDU AND CLASSICAL PORTUGUESE: IMPACTS ON THE GRAMMAR OF IMPERSONAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN BRAZILIAN AND ANGOLAN PORTUGUESE. Lingüística [online]. 2014, vol.30, n.2, pp.289-330. ISSN 2079-312X.

This article aims at explaining the emergence of some impersonal constructions of the Brazilian and Angolan varieties of Portuguese, which set them apart from the European variety. Our hypothesis is that these constructions emerged out of the contact between Classical Portuguese and Kimbundu. This contact took place in a transatlantic space built during the colonial era as a result of the intense interactions between Europeans and Africans, and, later, between Brazilian and Angolan merchants. In this transatlantic space, a pool of linguistic data would have been formed, encompassing grammatical traits contributed by the languages in contact. The selection of some of these traits, especially of those which seemed to be shared by both languages, is what we claim may explain the peculiarities of the constructions analyzed in this paper

Keywords : Brazilian Portuguese; Angolan Portuguese; language contact; impersonal constructions.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )