Particípios atemáticos no Português: tipologia, distribuição e avaliação

Abstract

In Portuguese, the existence of athematic participles (i.e. participles that are nor formed by a verb stem and the suffix -do) is fortuitous. It is originally related to the etymological memory of a distinction that existed in Latin between weak verbs that formed the participle from the verb stem (cfr. am-a-re; ama-t-us), and strong verbs that used the verb root for this same purpose (cfr. iac-e-re; iac-t-us). Still in Latin, some of the latter participles produced first conjugation weak verbs (cfr. frict-us -> frict-a-re), and that was probably the event that originated the effect of abundance in these new verbs. Apparently, two participles were available: the participle that was used to form the new verb (e.g. frictus) and the participle that the new verb allowed to form (e.g. frictatus). This abundance is only sometimes inherited in Portuguese (e.g. frigir, frito, fritar, fritado), but the verb-forming pattern will allow the appearance of new abundant verbs that have no etymological motivation. Therefore, Portuguese abundant verbs are not all alike, either in genetic or in structural terms, which allowed us to design a morphological and etymological typology of athematic participles.

The existence of two forms where only one should occur induces some usage issues. In fact, the two participles of abundant verbs are not systematically used. Grammarians such as Barboza (1822), Cunha & Cintra (1984) or Bechara (1999) prescribe syntactic norms (i.e. thematic participles occur with the auxiliary ter ‘to have’, in compound tenses, and athematic participles occur in passive constructions). These norms aim to regulate the use of the so-called abundant verbs, but the lists created by each author differ from one another and the norms are themselves problematic, since they try to create a systematic behaviour while knowing that language users do not follow them.

To discuss these issues, we will present two sets of data: (i) a survey of diachronic data attested since the 13th century and registered in the Corpus do Português; and (ii) some preliminary results of a research on the usage of these participles, based in an inquiry (created in the platform OnlinePesquisa) that was presented to Lisbon speakers of European Portuguese and Florianópolis speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. The analysis of these data allows us to conclude that this domain has blurred borders and an intrinsic heterogeneity (cfr. Weinreich, Labov & Herzog (2006 [1968]); Labov (2008 [1972])): the relationship between the typology of participial forms, grammatical norms and usage are less solid than what we anticipated. Nevertheless, this study suggests that the existence of an adjectival (or even nominal) form facilitates the appearance of an athematic participle. It also demonstrates that the usage of competing participles differs diachronically and it finally suggests that Portuguese and Brazilian varieties of Portuguese tend to behave differently: EP favours the usage of athematic participles, whereas BP tends to conform to the grammatical instruction.