Variation in the nominal number agreement in Porto Alegre Portuguese and the lifestyles of porto-alegrenses

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study about nominal number agreement (NC) in Porto Alegre Portuguese regarding the variation between explicit NC (as coisas quebradas ‘the broken things’) and zero NC (as coisas quebrada, as coisa quebrada). In the first stage of the study, a quantitative analysis of linguistic production of the atomistic (Scherre, 1988) or morphic type (Lucchesi; Dália, 2022) was carried out in the variationist sociolinguistic line (Labov, 2008), with data from 32 sociolinguistic interviews from LínguaPOA (2015-2019). Having explicit NC as the application value of the response variable, ten predictor variables were controlled: Morphophonological processes for plural formation, Stress of the singular lexical item, Relative position of the element to the head, Linear Position of the element in the noun phrase, Grammatical class of the analyzed item, Gender, Education, Income, Zone. Data analysis with R, a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics (The R Core Team, 2022), in mixed effects logistic regression models showed that explicit NC is favored by elements postponed to the head of the noun phrase and by speakers with a higher education level. It is disfavored by regular plurals, paroxytone and proparoxytone words, and low-income speakers. In the second stage of the study, content analysis was carried out (Bardin, 2011) in 8 of the 32 sociolinguistic interviews, seeking to clarify why categories such as Education, alone, are not able to explain the explicit NC. The reports in the interviews show that producing explicit NC is an attribute of subjects whose lifestyles are guided by a taste for luxury (Bourdieu, 2015): they circulate in the city center, consume cultural products, in practices that value and require the use of explicit NC, which is possible with higher income levels.