The syntax of 19th century Brazilians grammars: historiographical survey

• Grant number: 11/16903-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2012
• End date: June 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Olga Ferreira Coelho Sansone
• Grantee: Bruna Soares Polachini
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

19th century is a period of theoretical and methodological fluctuations in the studies about language in which start much related syntax changes in Brazilian Portuguese since the end of XX century, mainly in the scope of researches about parametric changing. Our goal is to verify, on the one hand, how theoretical and methodological fluctuations idiosyncratic of this period happen to be at these grammatical texts and, by the other hand, how and if Brazilian Portuguese is incorporated to descriptions and in case of incorporation if they include mention to phenomenon that would be later identified as linguistic changing phenomena. To perform the analysis of these issues, we intend to use the Swiggers' (2005) propose to think the production of linguistic knowledge as a whole in which one can identify 'layers', namely: a theoretical, technical and methodological, a documentary and a contextual. From there, thinking about the role of metalanguage in the configuration of linguistic knowledge, we made a selection of metaterms which, by definition, will allow us to approach these four 'layers' defined by Swiggers (2005). Thus, focusing on what this theorist thinks like 'layer' theoretical, we will see in the introductory sections of these texts how one has defined the terms: language and grammar, in the analysis of technical and methodological dimension, we intend to list the vocabulary for the treatment of syntax (in relation to their significants, meanings, taxonomy and examples), and for the analysis of the documental layer, we will see what is the Portuguese privileged data in each work, if BP or EP. The study of contextual layer provides that we make a relation between all metaterms and its values in the texts according to specific contexts of production and circulation of works.