The morphological gender of -l ending nouns in portuguese language

• Grant number: 21/03216-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2021
• End date: August 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Portuguese Language
• Principal Investigator: Mário Eduardo Viaro
• Grantee: Milena Guirelli Trindade
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project seeks to explore the morphological gender in Portuguese by investigating the relationship between gender and ending. Some authors have already observed this association and, among them, Said Ali (1923, pp. 55-68) can be highlighted, who presents possible gender indexes for nouns; however, in order to verify what is pointed out by the author, it is necessary to analyze in an expanded way how the morphological gender manifests itself in the different possible endings of nouns in the Portuguese language. In this sense, this work proposes to study how nouns ending in -l works, considering that words with this ending apparently tend to belong to the masculine morphological gender; besides examining the occurrence of the eventual exceptions, explaining their functioning. In addition, the results obtained will be compared with observations on the topic made by different authors. Therefore, with the development of this project, it will be possible to contribute to the morphologic studies, especially in relation to gender inflection in Portuguese. In addition, since inflection - especially when compared to derivation - is still underexplored in the linguistic field, this work collaborates to expand studies on the morphological gender in Portuguese. (AU)