Variation in the progressive forms of Portuguese from the 16th to the 19th century: a corpus-based study of Brazilian and Portuguese dramatic texts

• Grant number: 23/13049-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 01, 2024
• End date: April 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Historical Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Charlotte Marie Chambelland Galves
• Grantee: Heloisa Nogueira Marques
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/08908-6 - Periphrases and prepositional phrases with 'a + infinitive' in Portuguese and Spanish: a further look on the grammaticalization of 'estar + a + infinitive' in European Portuguese, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the variation in the progressive forms estar + gerund and estar a + infinitive over the history of European and Brazilian Portuguese. The objective of this research is to present, based on quantitative data, the growth in the use of estar + gerund in Brazilian Portuguese and the emergence of estar a + infinitive as an innovative form in European Portuguese, as well as to analyze the morphological and semantic contexts in which the progressive forms are used, in order to assess possible changes in the aspectual readings caused by the use of progressive forms in each Portuguese variety. To that end, the research will be based on a corpus containing annotated plays from the Tycho Brahe Parsed Corpus of Historical Portuguese that were written by Portuguese and Brazilian authors born from the 16th to the 19th century.