1. Introduction
Spoken Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP) is linguistically extremely different from European Portuguese (henceforth EP). In fact, with respect to their morphology, the distance between spoken BP and EP is so great that it has been argued that they could be considered typologically different (Clemens 2014, p. 186). The reasons responsible for these linguistic differences are complex and contested (Naro & Scherre, 2007), but many urban varieties of BP undoubtedly developed as a result of koineization (Britain & Trudgill, 2005b; Kerswill, 2013; Siegel, 1985; Trudgill, 1986, 2010, 2011). This is a process of new dialect formation, which takes place when speakers of mutually intelligible dialects come into intense and extended contact, and often leads to quite rapid, and occasionally dramatic, change, characterized by a number of features, including the emergence of mixed paradigms. Such mixed paradigms are a characteristic of BP.
The formation of new dialects via the process of koineization/dialect-mixing is a central analytical concept in modern dialectology and also figures prominently in sociolinguistic and historical-linguistic studies (Auer et al., 2005; Britain & Trudgill, 2005; Kerswill & Williams, 2000; Kerswill, 2013; Siegel, 1985; Trudgill, 1986, 2001a, 2001b, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2011; Tuten, 2008). Within the Romance languages, it has been hypothesised that koiné, the name given to new dialect born from koineization, underlie the basis of standard French (Lodge, 2010) and even standard Italian (Brown, 2020). It is Spanish, however, to which the theory of koineization has been most applied due to its socio-political history (Penny, 2000; Tuten, 2003, 2023). Despite the history of Portuguese sharing many features with Spanish that are naturally compatible with and invite a koineization-based analysis (displacement of peoples and formation of new communities in the south of the Iberian Peninsula due to the Christian Reconquest, colonial expansion in the Americas), this concept has largely been absent from historical and dialectal studies of Portuguese. Notable exceptions are Cardeira and Fernandes (2008) and Cardeira (2009) for EP, and Barros Pessoa (2003) for BP, but none of these focuses particularly on morphology. To our knowledge, the only morphological study to adopt the ideas on koineization is Finbow and O’Neill (2021), whose development of the mixed-paradigms of BP is adopted and expanded on below.
Historically, there arrived in Brazil three distinct paradigms for 2sg address: tu, você and o senhor/a senhora ‘the lady/the lord’. Both você and o senhor/a senhora marked deferential address, whereas tu marked non-deferential address. According to você’s origin as noun phrase meaning ‘your mercy’ (Vossa Mercê), it historically displayed 3sg agreement in the verb and had 3sg pronominal forms (as does o senhor/a senhora), which contrasted with the dedicated, etymological verbal and pronominal forms for the tu subject pronoun. These differences are illustrated in Tables 1 and 2. In spoken BP, although o senhor/a senhora was maintained as a marker of deferential address, você lost this function and came to be an alternative subject pronoun for non-deferential address alongside tu. Depending on the variety of BP, the etymological paradigms for você and tu are either maintained (Belem, Florianopolis) or merged. When they are merged, the merger can either be in favour of the tu subject pronoun (Rio Grande do Sul) or the você subject pronoun (South-East). The reasons for the victory of the specific pronoun are not important for the present study, but must largely have been a function of the frequency of such forms in the speech of emigrants to the relative regions. Regardless of which pronoun wins out, the principles which organise the merger of the two mixed paradigms are the same (Finbow & O’Neill, 2021). In this article, we concentrate on the mixed paradigm in the South-East region of Brazil, which, being home to the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and the state of Minas Gerais, represents the most populous region of the country and also the region, which is culturally, economically, and linguistically the most prestigious. Witness in Table 3 the mixed paradigm for the você subject pronoun in the speech of the city of São Paulo.
The etymological pronominal and (partial) verbal forms corresponding to the tu subject pronoun.
| Etymological tu – paradigm | ||||||
| Subject | + prep | + com ‘with’ | reflexive | direct object | indirect object | possessive |
| tu | de ti | contigo | te | te | te | teu(s) tua(s) |
| verbs | pos imper | neg imper | prs.ind | prs.sbj | ipfv.ind | pret |
| ‘sing’ ‘eat’ ‘sleep’ ‘say’ ‘do’ |
canta come dorme diz faz |
não cantes não comas não durmas não digas não faças |
cantas comes dormes dizes fazes |
cantes comas durmas digas faças |
cantavas comias dormias dizias fazias |
cantaste comeste dormiste disseste fizeste |
The etymological pronominal and (partial) verbal forms corresponding to the você subject pronoun.
| Etymological você – paradigm | ||||||
| Subject | + prep | + com ‘with’ | reflexive | direct object | indirect object | possessive |
| você | de si | consigo | se | o, -no, -lo a, -na, -la |
lhe | seu(s) sua(s) |
| verbs | pos imper | neg imper | prs.ind | prs.sbj | ipfv.ind | pret |
| ‘sing’ ‘eat’ ‘sleep’ ‘say’ ‘do’ |
cante coma durma diga faça |
não cante não coma não durma não diga não faça |
canta come dorme diz faz |
cante coma durma diga faça |
cantava comia dormia dizia fazia |
cantou comeu dormiu disse fez |
New você mixed-paradigm for 2sg non-deferential address in the spoken BP of the city of São Paulo. The forms in italics derive historically from the você paradigm, the forms in bold from the tu paradigm; the underlined forms are novel creations.
| New você – paradigm | ||||||
| Subject | + prep | + com ‘with’ | reflexive | direct object | indirect object | possessive |
| você | de você | com você | se ~ ø | te | te | seu(s)- sua(s) |
| verbs | pos imper | neg imper | prs.ind | prs.sbj | ipfv.ind | pret |
| ‘sing’ ‘eat’ ‘sleep’ ‘say’ ‘do’ |
canta ~ cante come ~ coma dorme ~ durma diz ~ diga faz ~ faça |
não canta ~ cante não come ~ coma não dorme ~ durma não diz ~ diga não faz ~ faça |
canta come dorme diz faz |
cante coma durma diga faça |
cantava comia dormia dizia fazia |
cantou comeu dormiu disse fez |
As noted, the development of this mixed paradigm corresponds to the principles of new dialect formation whereby the morphological variants which end up forming part of the new mixed paradigm tend to be the most morphologically simple ones, in the sense that they are more morphologically transparent, less morphologically marked and thus display less allomorphy. Accordingly, in São Paulo, the subject pronoun você alternates with the object pronoun te, etymological to the tu paradigm, and not with the pronouns to which it etymologically corresponds (direct object o[s], a[s], -no[s], -na[s], -lo[s], -la[s]; indirect object lhe[s]) since te is allomorph-free and also displays a greater inflexional range since it has the same form for both accusative and dative case.
The basic idea underlying the process of koineization is that when speakers of different dialects interact, they are confronted with different ways to say the same thing. The result is rampant variation in the first generation, which is then levelled in subsequent generations in accordance with the aforementioned principles of koineization. These principles explain not only the victory of te in São Paulo but also the fact that, with noted exceptions, all verb forms correspond etymologically to the você-paradigm and not the tu-paradigm. The latter are more marked than the former since they contain the -s marker of person and number (c.f. cantas vs. canta; cantavas vs. cantava). The noted exceptions are the forms of the imperative (henceforth imper) since there is still much variation between those which etymologically derive from the você-paradigm (henceforth v-imper) and those which derive from the tu-paradigm (henceforth t-imper). The competing forms of the 2sg.imper are, with one exception, continuants of the etymological forms. Thus, v-imper is syncretic with 1/3sg.prs.sbj in both positive and negative contexts and t-imper is syncretic with 3sg.prs.ind in the positive imperative. For negative forms of this imperative, however, it is an innovation of BP that these forms are not the etymological ones deriving from the tu-paradigm (a form syncretic with 2sg.prs.sbj e.g., não cantes ‘don’t sing!’; não comas ‘don’t eat!’, não durmas ‘don’t sleep!’, não faças ‘don’t do [it]!’) but a novel form which is identical to the positive imperative (e.g., não canta, não come, não dorme, não faz). For simplicity and clarity in the exposition, however, this novel BP imperative will also be referred to as t-imper.
The variation between v-imper and t-imper is the topic of this article. Within the koineization literature, it is accepted that variation can persist into future generations; however, in such cases, the different variants are usually assigned different sociolinguistic, stylistic, or even grammatical functions in a process referred to as reallocation1 (Britain & Trudgill, 2005a; Trudgill, 1986). As shall be explained, a number of authors have suggested specific ways in which this variation is being reallocated. The results of their experiments are, however, inconclusive, and the linguistic basis of this reallocation seems, to us, to be tenuous. We hypothesise that this variation is being reallocated with reference to concepts relating to the distinction between deferential/non-deferential address, and we carry out an experiment to test this hypothesis. Our results are also inconclusive; we therefore entertain the possibility that this variation constitutes a type of free or idiosyncratic variation for speakers. Previous studies on idiosyncratic variation (Dorian, 2010a) have suggested that this phenomenon is influenced by the social ecology and structure of the society. However, the generalisations put forward seem, at first sight, not applicable to Brazil. We analyse the relationship between spoken BP and the written standard and argue that the linguistic distance between the two could contribute to the existence of idiosyncratic variation. We conclude with the suggestion that idiosyncratic variation needs to be taken much more seriously.
2. Imperatives in BP: An overview
In those regions in which tu is either not attested or has a minimal or socially specified usage (for an overview see Faraco, 1996; Scherre et al., 2015) the subject pronouns você-sg/voces-pl are the markers of non-deferential address and contrast with the pronouns o senhor/a senhora-sg, os senhores/as senhoras-pl for deferential address. Both sets of pronouns historically displayed 3rd person agreement, whence their standard imperative forms. However, as noted above, spoken BP has two alternative forms for sg.imper in contexts of non-deferential address: v-imper and t-imper. To our knowledge, no variation has been reported for pl.imper (however, see 3.1.1 and O’Neill, 2024) whose standard forms are syncretic with 3pl.prs.sbj. In Table 4 we give examples of the different types of imper in BP for non-deferential address only in accordance with the traditional conjugational class distinctions of Portuguese (traditionally classed as -ar, -er and -ir verbs) and for the irregular verb fazer ‘do’.
The different morphological variants of imper in spoken BP for the verbs fazer ‘do’, cantar ‘sing’, comer ‘eat’ and dormir ‘sleep’ in BP.
| Gloss | conj | sg – pronoun você | pl – pronoun vocês | ||||
| t-imper | v-imper | ||||||
| positive | negative | positive | negative | positive | negative | ||
| do! | irregular | faz | não faz | faça | não faça | façam | não façam |
| sing! | -ar (1st conj) | canta | não canta | cante | não cante | cantem | não cantem |
| eat! | -er (2nd conj) | come | não come | coma | não coma | comam | não comam |
| sleep! | -ir (3rd conj) | dorme | não dorme | durma | não durma | durmam | não durmam |
2.1. Previous studies on imper in BP
The extensive morphological variation observed in BP has been well-documented in numerous studies (Barbosa et al., 2017; Guy, 1983; Scherre & Naro, 1998; Scherre, 2002, 2008, i.a.). The imperative mood is no exception, exhibiting rates of variation that set BP apart from many other Romance languages. As a result, this phenomenon has garnered significant attention in linguistic research, especially since the spoken forms frequently diverge from the prescriptive grammatical ones (Sampaio, 2001; Scherre, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2012; Scherre et al., 2007; Scherre & Naro, 2014).
The studies on sg.imper can be divided into two categories: (a) variationist studies following a Labovian methodology and (b) experimental studies. With reference to the first type, those of Scherre stand out for the amount of data analysed and its geographical extension (Scherre, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2012; Scherre et al., 2007). Regarding the difference between v-imper and t-imper, she concludes that the variation observed does not correlate with the presence of the etymological subject pronouns (tu and você), that both forms have identical truth values and lack both pejorative connotations (Scherre, 2007) and distinctions related to social distance (Scherre, Cardoso et al., 2007). In her studies, the main conditioning factor for the different forms is the geographic location. The author (Scherre, 2007) provides a comprehensive mapping of t-imper vs. v-imper across different regions of Brazil, on the basis of an impressive amount of spontaneous speech data collected from various regions between the 1970s and 1990s. The findings indicate that t-imper are more frequent in the Central-West, South, and Southeast regions of Brazil. In contrast, the Northeast region exhibits a higher frequency of v-imper, or presents a balanced distribution between the two forms (see also Oliveira, 2017). The general conclusion is that the patterns governing the grammatical variation of imperatives in BP reflect systematic diatopic regularities. These patterns characterise distinct varieties of BP, shaped by regional factors as well as rural/urban and interior/capital distinctions, all of which contribute to the broader landscape of spoken linguistic variation in BP. Notably, however, very few of the areas analysed showed a categorical preference for a specific imperative form. Instead, most regions and cities exhibited a high degree of variation between v-imper and t-imper. This variation is particularly evident in some cities within the states of Bahia (BA) and Ceará (CE) (Scherre, 2012). For example, in Santo Antônio de Jesus (BA), t-imper appeared in 56% of cases, while in Fortaleza (CE) this number was 40%. Note that in both regions, the preferred subject pronoun was você.
Other specific factors that the variationist studies have proposed as potential constraints on the appearance of t-imper over v-imper include the use of clitics in pre-verbal position (Cardoso, 2006; Scherre et al., 2007) and the presence of vocatives (Scherre et al., 2007), both features of spoken BP. Sentence polarity has also been identified as a significant factor (Cardoso, 2006; Scherre et al., 2007), with negative imperatives tending to favour v-imper. The explanation offered for this is related to the ability of BP to allow both pre- and postverbal negation, as well as double negation (e.g., ‘don’t do that’ can be realised as não faz/faça isso; faz/faça isso não; não faz/faça isso não). The standard form of negation (preverbal) most readily displays v-imper (não faça).
Finally, Scherre (2003)) also highlights a tendency toward the increased use of t-imper over time via a diachronic analysis of written dialogues in the Turma da Mônica ‘Monica and Friends’ comic books. This use of t-imper is linked to a growing desire to represent in writing the linguistic practices of spoken BP. Similar conclusions and the same historic tendency towards t-imper can be found in other studies (Andrade et al., 2007; Paredes Silva et al., 2000). Note that whilst these variationist studies have identified various factors which seem to be influential regarding the selection of t/v-imper, no systematic conditioning factors have been found, but rather tendencies.
Regarding the experimental studies, Lamberti and Schwenter (2018), drawing on work carried out on variation in imper in Argentinian Spanish (Johnson, 2013, 2016), proposed that the selection of t-imper/v-imper was correlated with the pragmatic notion of ‘immediacy’. They hypothesised that the more immediate the context, the more likely speakers would be to use t-imper. To test this hypothesis, they devised an experiment based on online cloze forced-choice tasks in which participants had to choose between t-imper and v-imper in different contexts of immediacy, distinguished by different types of adverbs. The results (376 participants) revealed that participants chose significantly more v-imper in the non-immediate contexts, characterised by the adverbs nunca ‘never’, sempre ‘always’, and a vida toda ‘all your life’, whereas they chose more t-imper in immediate contexts, characterised by the adverbs agora ‘now’, logo ‘immediately’, hoje ‘today’, etc. Building on this study, Schwenter and Hoff (2023) devised a more elaborate online survey in which, instead of having cloze tasks with different adverbs, the different +/– immediate contexts were explained in some detail, and speakers were forced to choose between sentences with a v-imper or t-imper. The results (178 respondents) revealed the same correlations in addition to more v-imper with negative polarity. Despite such correlations, however, neither the notion of immediacy nor negative polarity could alone account for the morphological variation observed. As an example of the considerable variation observed, the authors noted that participants in São Paulo – one of the two cities where the experiment was conducted – chose v-imper and t-imper at nearly identical rates in affirmative non-immediate contexts (2023: 337).2 Plus, the authors highlighted the prevalence of v-imper in contexts that are not necessarily temporally non-immediate, but lack a specific addressee. The examples they give are imperatives from billboards and advertisements in print or online. They associate this as being non-prototypical of here and now imperatives and therefore, subsume the notion of ‘immediacy’ with that of ‘presumed settledness’ (Kaufmann, 2002, 2005; Thomason & Gupta, 1980), which implies that a proposition has already been decided and therefore, in the future, it is either guaranteed to occur or the speaker has great confidence in it occurring.
With reference to affirmative imperatives, they claim that the t-imper forms would be used when speakers “presume as settled” that the listener was otherwise not going to perform the action being ordered. With negative imperatives, it would be the opposite, i.e., more t-imper forms when speakers ‘presume as settled’ that the listener was going to perform the action ordered. They justify the relationship between ‘immediacy’ and ‘presumed settledness’ via speakers wishing to appear confident about the need for the command/prohibition and therefore they emphasize it and highlight its urgency/immediacy. However, the presumption of settledness can at times be in opposition to the notion of ‘immediacy’. For example, one can imagine a number of situations in which one is sure that a person is going to carry out an order, but still wants the order to be carried out urgently or just wants to be emphatic.
In sum, the attempt to include immediacy within notions of presumed settledness seems rather tenuous and contradictory when applied to imperatives. Also, it is not clear how speakers would acquire a feature which corresponds to criteria that can be conflicting with respect to real-life contexts. The feature ‘immediacy’, which has a distinct meaning and clear pragmatic function, does however, seem relevant in imperative contexts. Nevertheless, as conceded by the authors, this feature alone could not account for the variation between v-imper/t-imper and especially the prevalence of v-imper in written media.
This summary of studies indicates the prevalence of variation in the use of the sg.imper in BP and the lack of any one grammatical, geographical, or social factor which can categorically predict this variation. Despite the lack of categorical controlling factors, there are some reliable correlations: the geographical origin of the speaker, the pragmatic context of ‘immediacy’ and the grammatical context of negative polarity. We think, however, there is an additional social factor which has been overlooked: the degree of social distance/solidarity between speakers. In what follows, we justify our hypothesis and present an experiment to test this hypothesis.
2.2. Our hypothesis
The imperative is not the only place in the BP mixed paradigms which shows variation between the two etymological feeder forms. In southern Brazil, where the subject pronoun tu predominates, there is variation in the possessive pronouns: etymological teu(s) alternates with seu(s) from the historical você paradigm. Regarding this variation, several studies have revealed that teu-possessives correlate strongly with concepts of solidarity and social proximity and also asymmetrical power relations of superior to inferior, such that the seu/teu contrast within a paradigm with the subject pronoun tu is functioning as a type of deferential/non-deferential marker (Arduin, 2005; Loregian-Penkal, 2004; Menon, 1995; Menon & Loregian-Penkal, 2003). As explained above, in Brazil deferential address is marked by the use of a specific deferential subject pronoun: o senhor/a senhora (sg), os senhores/as senhoras (pl), which is also present in the aforementioned varieties. What seems to be happening is that a nuanced system of deferential address is evolving in sg, whereby the most deferential type of address is marked by the use of the pronoun o senhor/a senhora but then, when the subject pronoun tu is used, one can still express degrees of social distance/solidarity via the teu/seu variation in the possessive pronouns. Despite previous studies noting that there seemed to be no differences regarding the differential use of t-imper/v-imper and social factors such as [+/- distance] (Scherre et al., 2007, p. 210), based on the aforementioned seu/teu distinctions and our own impressions, we hypothesize that same phenomenon could be responsible for the variation in imper. That is, alongside the standard way to mark deferential address explicitly via a subject pronoun, there is also a system within the non-deferential address pronoun, você, whereby one can mark the presence (or lack of) social distance/power relationships/solidarity via the use of the imperative: t-imper marks less social distance and more solidarity than v-imper. In Table 5, we present a schema for this system whereby A represents the most deferential type of address and C the most non-deferential type/more relations of solidarity.
The different ways to say ‘Are you ok? Come in and make yourself at home’, in accordance with our hypothesized nuanced system of address.
| A | O senhor está bem? Entre e fique à vontade | o/a senhor(a) + v-imper |
| B | Você está bem? Entre e fique à vontade | você + v-imper |
| C | Você está bem? Entra e fica à vontade | você + t-imper |
Such an evolution is not surprising since, generally speaking, Portuguese tends to have complex systems of address with nuanced ways to express the presence (or lack of) social distance/power relationships/solidarity/deference. For example, in EP, there exist multiple forms of address, including você, which marks distance but not deference (see Carreira, 2004; Gouveia, 2008 i.a., for pragmatic distinctions). Space restrictions do not allow for a full discussion of the pragmatic and social implications related to what is traditionally referred to as the difference between deferential/non-deferential address. In what follows, therefore we shall adopt this traditional terminology whilst acknowledging that the reality is much more complex.
Our hypothesis is that within the usage of the non-deferential pronoun você, t-imper will be used more frequently in less deferential/more socially proximate contexts, while v-imper in more deferential/less socially proximate contexts. This distinction intersects with the concept of ‘immediacy’ since one is more likely to give orders which need to be carried out immediately to people with whom one has close bonds of solidarity. Likewise, the prevalence of v-imper on billboards reflects the impersonal nature of such signs, whereas the prevalence of t-imper with vocatives and features more characteristic of spoken BP reflects more personal, socially proximate relationships. Finally, if this nuanced form of address system is a change in progress, then the prediction from koineization would be that it is attested more widely in unmarked vs. marked contexts, which would correspond to the noted prevalence of v-imper in (marked) negative contexts. Note also that cross-linguistic studies on imper highlight polarity asymmetries whereby features present in positive imper are neutralised in negative imper (Aikhenvald, 2010, pp. 165–197; Van Olmen, 2024).
Our main hypothesis, however, is that the most significant conditioning factor between the variation between t-imper/v-imper is the social factor loosely related to the distinction between deferential/non-deferential address. On the basis of this hypothesis, an experiment was designed in which positive and negative imperatives were elicited from speakers. The pragmatic factor of immediacy was kept constant, but our supposed determinative social factors were controlled for.
3. Experimental design
The experiment involved presenting participants with different images, each depicting distinct individuals: a group of older businessmen, a group of children, an elderly woman, a young man in a suit, a silhouette. Participants were instructed that the silhouette represented their best friend or sibling, while the young man in the suit was meant to symbolize their boss or supervisor at work, with whom they had a friendly yet professional relationship. Participants were then prompted to ask the people in the images questions to determine which pronouns they would naturally use for each figure. All participants used the deferential subject pronoun (a senhora/os senhores) with the image of the elderly woman and the group of older businessmen but the non-deferential subject pronoun (você/vocês) with the silhouette and the group of children. For the image of the young man in the suit, one participant used the deferential form of address (o senhor) whilst the others used the non-deferential form. This person was instructed that the supposed imagined relationship with this person was respectful, but it was not necessary to use this form of address, and that você was more appropriate. A number of specific friendly work-based questions were elicited with the image of the young man in the suit to ensure that (a) você was consistently being used and (b) to reinforce that the relationship was a work-based and hierarchical one. At this point in the experiment the image of the elderly women and the old business men were disregarded since the aim of the experiment was to investigate the use of the imperatives with the pronoun você and these images had only been included to confirm that speakers did have a distinction between deferential and non-deferential address based on the subject pronouns (você vs. o/a senhor[a], vocês vs. os senhores/as senhoras) and that they were using the você form for both their friend/sibling and their young boss/supervisor = image of the young man in the suit. The image of the children was not disregarded, however, since it was deemed necessary to include a plural context in the second phase of the experiment to function as distractor forms.
In this second phase, each of the different images was placed (individually) in front of the participants, and they were told to imagine that they were speaking directly to the person/children in this image. Participants were then shown another set of images illustrating various actions and were asked to identify the actions and produce imperative verb forms (in the positive and negative) in an emergency or rushed context; this putative environmental conditioning factor was kept constant for all elicitations. Note that beforehand, participants had identified all verbs depicted in the images using their infinitive forms. Note also that previous pilot studies had indicated that participants often exhibited serial effects, meaning they would produce the same type of verb forms in a fixed pattern, e.g., all t-imper. To mitigate this, the experiment was broken up by map-tasks and question elicitations. Elicitation of sg.imper was also interspersed with that of pl.imper. When the image changed, however, participants were required to ask the new addressee questions to ensure they were focused on the shift in interlocutor.
In accordance with the different images, the following distinct contexts were created in which the non-deferential subject pronouns were used, and negative and positive imperatives were elicited.
Singular, highly familiar (friend/sibling).
Singular, less familiar (young boss/supervisor).
Plural, familiar (group of children).
The experiments were conducted in two Brazilian cities: Araraquara (São Paulo state) and Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais state capital). The selection of these locations was based on the availability of trained research assistants – native Brazilian linguists with PhDs – who facilitated the experiments and recruited participants. The first author was present at all sessions to oversee the recordings, which were captured using a Zoom H6 Handy Recorder with a shotgun microphone capsule (SGH-6).
Participants were recruited from the research assistants’ social circles (friends, colleagues, or fellow students), and the experiments took place in informal settings. The relaxed environment helped ensure that participants did not feel as though they were being tested on their language proficiency; instead, they treated the activity as a fun game. All participants received a small compensation for their involvement and signed a consent form providing details about their age and educational background. The consent form also confirmed that the project had received approval from a University ethics committee.3
The participant pool included four men and three women in Araraquara and three men and three women in Belo Horizonte. Their ages ranged from 20 to 52, and all had completed mandatory secondary education (ensino médio), with most either currently studying at or having attended university. It must be stated, therefore, that this sample is not representative of the broader Brazilian population, as the participants had significantly more years of schooling than the national average.
The selection of verbs for the study was based on two criteria: ease of elicitation through images and an even distribution across conjugation classes, as conjugation class was included in case it was a potential conditioning factor. The traditional Portuguese conjugation classification, however, was not used since an additional category for irregular verbs4 was introduced to account for morphological irregularities in some imperative forms. The list of verbs included in each category is presented in Table 6. As stated, these verbs were elicited in both positive and negative contexts.
Verbs used in the experiment.
| Class | Number | Lexemes |
| irregular | 8 | dar ‘give’, dizer ‘say’, fazer ‘do’, ir ‘go’, pôr ‘put’, trazer ‘bring’, ver ‘see’, vir ‘come’ |
| -ar verbs (1st) | 8 | cantar ‘sing’, colocar ‘put’, estressar ‘stress’, esperar ‘wait’, falar ‘speak’, lavar ‘wash’, pular ‘jump’, tirar ‘take off/away’ |
| -er verbs (2nd) | 7 | beber ‘drink’, comer ‘eat’, correr ‘run’, descer ‘get off/down’, esconder ‘hide’, escrever ‘write’, surpreender ‘surprise’ |
| -ir verbs (3rd) | 6 | construir ‘build’, dormir ‘sleep’, ouvir ‘hear’, seguir ‘follow’, subir ‘go up’, vestir ‘dress’ |
3.1. Hypothesis for the experiment
In accordance with our general hypothesis for sg.imper in BP and our experimental design, we make the following hypotheses.
A. In the context of talking to their friend/sibling (image of silhouette), subjects will produce significantly more t-imper than v-imper in positive imperative contexts only.
B. In the context of talking to their young boss/supervisor (image of young man in a suit), subjects will produce significantly more v-imper than t-imper in positive imperative contexts only.
4. Results
4.1. Preliminary observations and statistical analysis
4.1.1. Note on sg.imper: Inferential statistics
For the statistical analysis of the sg.imper we used R (R Core Team, 2018) and lme4 (Bates et al., 2015) to perform a mixed-effects logistic regression analysis of the relationship between the type of imperative and the following variables: contextdeferential/non-deferential, polaritypositive/negative, conjugation, frequency, speaker, gender, and education. As fixed effects, we had level of education, frequency, type of imperative, context, and polarity. As random effects, we had intercepts for subjects, as well as by-subject random slopes for the effect of the variable context. In order to avoid overfitting the regression model and to account for the interactions between the different conjugational classes, frequency, and conjugation class were calculated apart with the fixed variables context and polarity and intercepts for subjects. For the effects of the variables speaker and gender, p-values were obtained by likelihood ratio tests of the full model with the effect in question against the model without the effect in question. For other effects predicted probabilities were extracted from log-odds calculations. In order to establish any significant differences between the two cities the data sets were combined, and another mixed-effects logistical model was carried out on the combined data with fixed effects for context, polarity and city, and with speaker as a random effect and by-subject random slopes for the effect of context.
4.1.2. Note of the variable ‘frequency’
Anticipating our results, the most reliable effect across both cities was for the variable frequency. However, as pointed out and explained in the analysis of the pl.imper (O’Neill, 2024, 9–10), these positive effects were the result of the way the frequency was (mis)calculated.5 The variable frequency will therefore be omitted from the presentation of the results and disregarded for the discussion.
4.2. General overview
Overall, as illustrated by the data in Table 7 and their visual representation in Figure 1, there was significant variation between the two morphological forms of imper. This variation was present in both cities, although Araraquara showed a slight preference for t-imper and Belo Horizonte for v-imper.
Numbers of the different types of imperatives according to the city.
| t-imper | v-imper | |
| Araraquara | 351 (54%) | 304 (46%) |
| Belo Horizonte | 240 (44%) | 304 (56%) |
Bar charts corresponding to the above data. Count = number of imperatives.
As for the inferential statistics, the results were that, in Araraquara, there were reliable effects for speaker, context, polarity and conjugation and, in Belo Horizonte, there were reliable effects for speaker and conjugation only. In no city were there effects for education or gender. There were also no reliable effects between the two cities (χ2(1) = 0.092, p = <0.76). In what follows, the data for each significant effect will be presented separately.
4.2.1. Variable: Speaker
Speaker was the variable which produced the most reliable effects, being highly significant in both cities (Araraquara (χ2(1) = 170.02, p = <0.0001); Belo Horizonte (χ2(1) = 158.47, p = <0.0001)). As observable from the data in Table 8, represented as bar charts in Figure 2, there is significant inter- and intra-speaker variation. For example, in Araraquara, there is one speaker (M4), who categorically only used v-imper and, in Belo Horizonte, there were two speakers (M2 & M3) who, whilst not categorical, displayed a very strong tendency towards these forms. In both cities, there were also speakers who displayed a strong tendency towards t-imper (F1 and F2 in Araraquara and F2 and M1 in Belo Horizonte) and others for whom there was no clear preference (F3 in both Araraquara and Belo Horizonte).
Numbers of the different types of imperatives according to the speaker for both cities.
| Participant code | Araraquara | Belo Horizonte | ||
| t-imper | v-imper | t-imper | v-imper | |
| F1 | 78 (79%) | 21 (21%) | 37 (36%) | 66 (64%) |
| F2 | 58 (82%) | 13(18%) | 95 (89%) | 12 (11%) |
| F3 | 49 (50%) | 49 (50%) | 53 (55%) | 43 (45%) |
| M1 | 75 (74%) | 26 (26%) | 46 (85%) | 8 (15%) |
| M2 | 32 (39%) | 50 (61%) | 7 (7%) | 95 (93%) |
| M3 | 59 (56%) | 46 (44%) | 2 (2%) | 80 (98%) |
| M4 | 0 (0%) | 99 (100%) | – | – |
Bar charts of the different types of imperatives for each city according to the speaker. M = masculine, F = feminine.
4.2.2. Variable: Context
Recall that the two different contexts corresponded roughly to the distinction between deferential and non-deferential address. Our central hypothesis was that these contexts were conditioning factors for the variation in the imper. For the variable context, however, there were only reliable effects in Araraquara, not in Belo Horizonte. In Araraquara, the predicted probability of observing a v-imper decreased from 0.94 in deferential contexts to 0.29 in non-deferential contexts (logit difference: –3.62, SE = 1.77, z = –2.04, p < 0.04). In Table 9, we provide a count of the different types of imper according to the variables context and city and in Figure 3, there is a visual representation of this variation for each individual speaker in each city.
Numbers of the different types of imperatives according to the variables context and city.
| Non-deferential (singular) | Deferential (singular) | |||
| t-imper | v-imper | t-imper | v-imper | |
| Araraquara | 243 (69%) | 107 (31%) | 108 (35%) | 197 (65%) |
| Belo Horizonte | 129 (45%) | 156 (55%) | 111 (43%) | 148 (57%) |
Bar charts of the different types of imperatives for each speaker in each city according to the variable context. Black = t-imper, grey = v-imper.
The first point to highlight from these data is the variation between cities and the already noted substantial variation between speakers. In Belo Horizonte there seems to be similar responses by all speakers (save perhaps M1) across both contexts, whereas in Araraquara there are some differences depending on the speaker: F3 seems to have a clear preferences for t-imper in non-deferential contexts and v-imper in deferential contexts, this is a tendency for M1 and M2 also, however, F1 and F2 show no real tendencies for the variable context.
4.2.3. Variable: Polarity
Recall that polarity refers to the difference between positive and negative imper. In comparison with the variable context, the raw data in Table 10 and its visual representation in the bar charts in Figure 4 seem to suggest that there are no real significant differences for the variable polarity. The statistical analysis, however, revealed that in Araraquara, but not in Belo Horizonte, there was a reliable effect of polarity, with the predicted probability of observing v-imper decreasing from 0.66 in negative contexts to 0.38 in positive contexts (logit difference: –1.11, SE = 0.24, z = –4.72, p < 0.00).
Numbers of the two different imperatives for each city according to the variable polarity.
| Positive | Negative | |||
| t-imper | v-imper | t-imper | v-imper | |
| Araraquara | 193 (58%) | 138 (42%) | 158 (49%) | 166 (51%) |
| Belo Horizonte | 116 (45%) | 142 (55%) | 124 (43%) | 162 (57%) |
Bar charts of the data in the table above.
This reliable effect for polarity becomes apparent for Araraquara when the raw data for polarity is analysed with respect to the variable context, of which there were two levels deferential (D) and non-deferential (ND) contexts. Witness the data in Table 11. It seems, therefore, that polarity and context interact since the differences between the two polarities becomes more apparent when one analyses the differences with respect to the different contexts (non-deferential/deferential). Specifically, there are substantially more v-imper when the variables polaritynegative and contextdeferential either combine or are both absent.
Numbers of the two different imperatives for Araraquara only in which the tokens for the variable Polarity are sub-divided in accordance with the variable context. D= deferential context, ND= non-deferential context.
| Positive | Negative | |||||||
| t-imper | v-imper | t-imper | v-imper | |||||
| Araraquara | 193 (58%) | 138 (42%) | 158 (49%) | 166 (51%) | ||||
| ND | D | ND | D | ND | D | ND | D | |
| 130 (67%) | 63 (33%) | 41 (30%) | 97 (70%) | 113 (72%) | 45 (28%) | 66 (40%) | 100 (60%) | |
As expected by the already noted reliable effect for the variable speaker, there is also much inter- and intra-speaker variation, as illustrated graphically in the bar charts in Figure 5 for Araraquara only.
Bar charts of the different types of imperatives for each speaker in each city according to the Polarity. Black = t-imper, grey = v-imper; n= negative imper, p = positive imper.
4.2.4. Variable: Conjugation class
In Araraquara, in the mixed-effects logistic regression analysis, there was a mild significant effect of the variable conjugation but only for the verbs of the third (p = 0.0461) and irregular conjugations (p = 0.0402) when compared with the first. In Belo Horizonte the effects were more robust with conjugation being strongly significant overall (χ2(3) = 27.6, df = 3, p < 0.0001) and for verbs of the second (p = 0.003), third (p < 0.0001) and irregular (p < 0.0001) conjugations. In Table 12, we give the raw data, which is visually depicted as bar charts in Figure 6. Note that our invented irregular conjugation class was categorised as conjugation 4 for the statistical analysis.
Numbers of the different types of imperatives according to the conjugation for both cities.
| Araraquara | Belo Horizonte | |||
| t-imper | v-imper | t-imper | v-imper | |
| Conjugation 1 | 80 | 50 | 79 | 45 |
| Conjugation 2 | 95 | 77 | 60 | 73 |
| Conjugation 3 | 76 | 77 | 44 | 77 |
| Conjugation 4 | 100 | 100 | 57 | 109 |
Bar charts of the different types of imperatives for each city according to conjugation class.
To establish if conjugation was significant overall for each city and any significant differences between all different conjugations, and not just in comparison with the first, further statistical analyses were performed using R (R Core Team, 2018). Wald tests were carried out on a logistic regression analysis with the fixed effects polarity, context, and conjugation. Tests were carried out for all conjugations together and then each conjugation was compared with the others. The results were that in Araraquara the variable conjugation was not significant overall (χ2(3) = 6.3, p = 0.096) but the first conjugation had significantly fewer v-imper when compared with third (χ2(1) = 5.8, p = 0.016) and fourth conjugations (χ2(1) = 5.0, p = 0.015) but not with the second (χ2(1) = 3.5, p = 0.062). In Belo Horizonte, the fine-grained analysis revealed that, as in Araraquara, the effect of conjugation was only significant with the first conjugation, which had significantly fewer v-imper forms when compared with the second (χ2(1) = 10.3, p = 0.001), third (χ2(1) = 16.2, p < 0.0001) and fourth conjugations (χ2(1) = 18.9, p < 0.0001).
5. Conclusion and discussion of results of experimental study
5.1. Overall conclusion
In sum, the only reliable effects in both cities were those for speaker. Speakers displayed much inter- and intra-individual variation. Although conjugation was not significant overall, a fine-grained statistical analysis revealed, however, that for both cities, speakers produce significantly more t-imper in the first conjugation. In Araraquara only, there were also reliable effects for context and polarity, with speakers showing a tendency to produce more v-imper in both deferential contexts and with negative polarity.
The results of our experiment, therefore, confirm our hypothesis for Araraquara only. That is, in this city only, the difference between t-imper and v-imper is becoming correlated with notions related to the distinction between deferential and non-deferential address, but this distinction is only present in positive imperatives not in negative imperatives. That is, although in the single there is a distinct pronominal marker for deferential address (o senhor/a senhora) which contrasts with that for non-deferential address (você), the imperative usage corresponding to você is nuanced in positive imperatives. In contexts of asymmetrical power relations in which there is social distance and not such strong links of solidarity, speakers on the less powerful side of the relationship are more likely to use positive v-imper when addressing people on the more powerful side.
5.2. Discussion
As to why the correlation found in Araraquara between the type of sg.imper and notions related to deferential/non-deferential address is not as robust in the negative imper, we think that this could be because the distinction is an emergent one. Therefore, in keeping with the principles of koineization, such new and emergent morphological distinctions are more likely to be realised in the more frequent and unmarked positive imperatives than the less frequent and marked negative imperatives. Note also that, cross-linguistically, there is a tendency for distinctions present in positive imper to be neutralised in negative imper (Aikhenvald, 2010, pp. 165–197; Van Olmen, 2024). As to why v-imper is more prevalent in negative imperatives, this is a historical legacy. The v-imper corresponded etymologically to the imper belonging to the paradigm in which você was the subject pronoun; having the você pronoun correspond to the t-imper is an innovation. As noted, this innovation has managed to make clear inroads in unmarked positive imperative contexts but not so much in negative contexts.
Regarding the prevalence of t-imper in the first conjugation versus the other conjugations and especially the irregular verbs (what we classed as conjugation 4), in which there were significantly more v-imper, these effects could be related to frequency effects and the difference between producing imperative forms from memory vs. relying on generalisations/rules present in the morphological system. Frequent morphological forms typically become lexically entrenched and resistant to change (Bybee, 1988, 1995, 2010). The v-imper of the irregular verbs used in the present study (see Table 6) is undoubtedly lexically stored due to their frequency. Therefore, if we accept that the substitution of the v-imper by the t-imper is an innovation caused by the process of koineization/new dialect formation, then it follows that the most frequent, entrenched forms will be most resistant to this change. This conclusion comes from the assumption that irregular verbs have weak associations with other lexemes and so are lexically autonomous and entrenched (Bybee, 1995, 2001, p. 124; Caramazza et al., 1988; Hare et al., 2001, p. 4; Mowrey & Pagliuca, 1995; Stemberger & MacWhinney, 1988) and therefore unlikely to be subject to morphological overgeneralisation (Corbett et al., 2001) and resistant to morphological change. Conversely, those verbs which are most likely to be subject to change are the less frequent ones, which are most likely to be produced in accordance with the morphological generalisation/rules of the language (as opposed to being lexically stored). As to why these verbs should be those of the 1st conjugation, as opposed the those of 2nd or the 3rd conjugations (remember that in both Araraquara and Belo Horizonte, there were significant differences between the 1st conjugation and both the class of irregular verbs and 3rd conjugation verbs), there is independent evidence to suggest that there are qualitative differences between these conjugations. Veríssimo and Clahsen (2009) provide experimental evidence to suggest that first conjugation verbs are constructed in accordance with morphological rules (root + thematic vowel + desinences), whereas the stems of third conjugation verbs are stored as a unit. Accordingly, the prediction would be that any innovations in the morphological system would first target those verbs which rely more on the morphological system for their production.
Regarding the lack of reliable effects for context in Belo Horizonte, it could be that the origin of this change in progress is the city of São Paulo, which, with its 11.5 million inhabitants, is the largest city in Brazil and also the most important city in economic terms. Pending experimental confirmation, were this to be the case then it is understandable that this innovation has reached Araraquara, which is in the interior of the state of which São Paulo (289 km away) is the capital and the economic, cultural, and prestige focus point for residents. Belo Horizonte is not only further away from São Paulo (583 km), but it is also the capital and prestige centre of its own state, Minas Gerais, which historically was in conflict with São Paulo for political and economic hegemony of Brazil. Given that in both regions você, which corresponded etymologically to the v-imper, is the dominant subject pronoun, then there is evidence to support the aforementioned idea of a change in progress originating in São Paulo but which is yet to reach other capitals of the South-East region of Brazil. This evidence comes from the overall numbers of imper (see Table 7) which show a preference in Belo Horizonte for v-imper (56% of tokens in Belo Horizonte vs. 46% in Araraquara).
The general conclusion of our study could be that the reliable effects for context in Araraquara suggest that there is a change in process whereby BP is developing a nuanced term-of-address system. Alongside the established differences between deferential/non-deferential address marked by the use of the subject pronouns (o senhor/a senhora vs. você respectively) there is emerging within the você paradigm a way to mark social distance/power/solidarity via the use of t-imper or v-imper. The latter being correlated with more deferential situations. This socially determined use of the sg.imper is an emerging generalisation and therefore is only present in positive imperatives and effects those verbs whose imperative forms are most likely to be ‘morphologically created’ as opposed to having a dedicated memorised form. The emerging nature of this generalisation and the supposition that it originated in São Paulo, helps to explain the lack of reliable effects in Belo Horizonte. The change has not reached other cities of the South-East yet.
Whilst the previous paragraph could be a valid conclusion based on our study, we would like to remain circumspect with our conclusions, however, due to the significant inter- and intra-individual variation in the data. For example, whilst the percentages do indicate a slight preference in Belo Horizonte for v-imper, it should be noted that t-imper occurred in 44% of cases; this is an extremely high number. Note also that when the data sets for both cities were combined there were no reliable effects for the variable city or the variable context. Also, although there were reliable effects in Araraquara for the variable context, confirming our hypothesis, when one analyses the data more closely (see Table 9 and Figure 3) two things stand out: (a) subjects produced an imperative which went against our hypothesis in roughly a third of cases; (b) there remains much individual idiosyncratic variation. For example, in Araraquara speaker F3 behaved almost categorically in accordance with our hypothesis (t-imper in non-deferential contexts and v-imper in deferential contexts) whilst speaker M4 displayed v-imper consistently in both contexts. In the following section, we entertain the possibility that both imperatives exist in a state of stable free variation, and we discuss the concept of morphological idiosyncratic variation.
5.2.1. Idiosyncratic variation
Idiosyncratic variation (henceforth IV) has been given different names in the linguistic literature (e.g., Ellis, 1985, p. 136: “random variability”; MacKenzie, 2019: “individual differences”; Guy, Oushiro et al., 2022: “intra-speaker variation”; Dorian, 2010a: “idiosyncratic variation”; Bülow & Pfenninger, 2021: “intra-individual variation”; Bolinger, 1956; Kopf & Weber, 2023 i.a.: “free variation”). It relates to what Moser (2023) calls true optionality, this is, cases where speakers consistently alternate between two or more syntactic variants without a clear preference, and where neither form is associated with specific grammatical, pragmatic, or sociolinguistic constraints. This means that the variation is not driven by external pressures (such as register, dialect contact, or language change) but is instead an inherent property of the speaker’s grammatical system. It can also be linked to the concept of overabundance (Thornton, 2012, 2019), the situation in which two (or more) inflectional forms are available to realize the same cell in an inflectional paradigm. On the topic of overabundance, Thornton (2019, p. 232) notices that “most linguists assume that overabundance can exist only as a transitional stage during diachronic change, and that any single speaker only uses one of the cell mates available in a community’s repertoire; besides, many assume that cell mates always differ according to geo-socio-stylistic conditions, or in meaning”. This is because the possibility of this variation goes against a number of proposed linguistic principles: Clark’s Principle of Contrast (Clark, 1987), the Pāṇini’s principle (Cardona, 1997), or the idea within theories of koineization/dialect mixing that after a period of variation grammars will become stable and focussed (Britain & Trudgill, 2005; Kerswill, 2004; Siegel, 1985; Trudgill, 2001a; 2001b). Most significantly, however, is the fact that the presence of IV is in direct contradiction to one of the most fundamental and guiding principles of research in variational linguistics, namely, the principle of “orderly heterogeneity” (Weinreich et al., 1968). This principle states that language variation is not random or idiosyncratic but, when not grammatically governed, is structured along social dimensions whereby linguistic variables can be indexical of some social meaning or category. There is a plethora of studies which show how variables at all linguistic levels of analysis can be correlated with grammatical and social meaning (see Beaman & Guy, 2022; Werth et al., 2021). However, the fact that some variables in some languages can have social or grammatical correlates does not necessarily mean that all variation is correlated this way. Indeed, it has been suggested that the assumption of orderly heterogeneity has made researchers blind to idiosyncratic variation (Dabrowska, 2012; Dorian, 2010a, 2010b). Moreover, there is evidence (Bülow et al., 2019) to question studies in the area of correlational sociolinguistics for adhering to what Wolfram and Beckett (2000) have termed “the homogeneity assumption”, whereby sets of speakers are treated as a homogenous group with respect to their variation.
Studies within what has been termed the third-wave of variationist sociolinguists (Eckert, 2012) have moved away from such homogenizing tendencies and view linguistic variation as not marking fixed social categories but as a tool for constructing different personae, styles and identities which, in turn, are related to larger social structures (Moore & Carter, 2015). However, the orderly heterogeneity of linguistic variation is assumed (although it is accepted to be instantiated in complex social ways), and idiosyncratic variation is largely disregarded. This tendency is also related to the shift of analysis in sociolinguistics from the individual level, i.e., that of idiolects, to the population level (Weinreich et al., 1968). The necessity of this analysis was further enforced by Labov (2001, p. 34) who highlighted that “linguistic analysis cannot recognize individual grammars or phonologies … individuals are not the final units of linguistic analysis, but the components that are used to construct models of our primary object of interest, the speech community.” However, more recent research, especially within sound change, has highlighted the importance of the individual in linguistic change (Anthonissen, 2021; Blythe & Croft, 2021; Stevens, 2022; Stuart-Smith & Timmins, 2010).
In spite of the orderly heterogeneity assumptions lasting relevance (see Beaman & Guy, 2022), there is a growing body of research that stresses the prevalence of IV which is not correlated with any social meaning within language communities (Bülow et al., 2019; Bülow & Pfenninger, 2021; Dorian, 2010b; Entringer, 2021; Fasold, 1975; Hymes, 1979; Johnstone, 1996; Le Page & Tabouret-Keller, 1985; O’Neill, 2024; Schilling-Estes, 1998; Wolfram & Beckett, 2000). Dorian (2010a) highlights the disregard for analyzing IV, noting that researchers often miss it due to their backgrounds in highly standardized languages and ingrained assumptions that speech variation is tied to social categories (e.g., age, gender) or grammatical constraints (see also Milroy & Milroy, 1999; Schieffelin et al., 1998).
Werth et al. (2021, p. 2) postulate different causes for the lack of particular attention on the matter. Firstly, they highlight how the methods for carrying out research on IV using insights from variationist and complexity theories “have remained relatively elusive”. Secondly, they note that IV goes against Chomsky’s (1965) view of generative grammar, which depicts the competence of an ideal speaker-hearer in a homogeneous speech community. Speakers’ convergence is taken as a fact (“almost [as] an article of faith”, Dąbrowska, 2018, p. 222). Such stances lead to disregarding IV, before even asking what it could mean, or supposing that there is a need for more research to uncover the underlying correlations. Note that Guy and Hinskens (2016, p. 1) state, “a fortiori there has to be a unifying, albeit maybe slightly more abstract, overall system in the coherence of language varieties, otherwise we would all be living in an eternal tower of Babel.”
We would like to suggest that the variation in sg.imper in Belo Horizonte, at least, is a matter of IV. And, despite the reliable effects of context and polarity in our study and immediacy in other studies, we highlight that these effects are tendencies and not absolutes. There still remains much IV at the population level, which needs to be acknowledged. These conclusions for BP, however, are problematic in the light of previous studies, most notably Dorian (2010a), who suggests that the prevalence of IV can be a result of social factors, and identifies the following social traits:
the language has a small population of native speakers;
there is an absence of socioeconomic differentiation between speakers;
the language can be classed as a minority language or endangered language;
the language is used as the traditional means of communication within the home, but it is under pressure from another more dominant language for communication in society, as a whole;
the language lacks a written standard (see also Entringer, 2021).
These social traits are categorically not characteristic of Brazilian society, and yet, the results of our study on sg.imper and also a study on pl.imper (O’Neill, 2004) reveal much IV in BP. This latter study, which was based on data from the current experiment but focussed on pl.imper, found that although speakers displayed certain tendencies or preferences for pl.imper (e.g., in negative contexts in Araraquara) these tendencies were not displayed overall by all speakers across both cities. The only variable which was significant in both cities was that of speaker, suggesting that there exists much idiosyncratic variation in the pl.imper. We suggest that the same could also be true of sg.imper. In what follows we argue that the relationship with the written standard could be a significant ecological factor in the maintenance of idiosyncratic variation. Therefore, languages need not lack a written standard to display IV, rather IV can appear in social contexts in which speakers feel alienated from the standard language and therefore do not actively engage with it or aspire to learn it.
5.2.2. The formation of BP and the rise of its standard
Spoken BP is considerably different from the official standard for the country. So much so that it has even been claimed that BP should be considered the language with the most native speakers that does not have a written system (Perini, 2003). Space restrictions do not allow for a full discussion of the origins of the marked differences between spoken and written BP or the history of the establishment of the BP written standard (for an overview, see O’Neill, 2022). What follows is a summary of the main points.
In addition to the universal tendency of languages to change over space and time, in Brazil there were also a number of socio-historic and political factors which worked as a catalyst for language change. Politically, there was, from colonial to modern times, a significant disregard for education and literacy. Historically, the Portuguese spoken in Brazil was subject to prolonged and extensive (a) contact with other languages, (b) acquisition as a second language by adult speakers (indigenous peoples, African slaves, and non-Portuguese speaking migrants), (c) regular exponential increases in the number of native speakers, and (d) dialect mixing due to population migrations. Given such social circumstances, the predictions of linguistic research is that of rapid language change resulting in the emergence of new varieties of the language, or koinés (Bentz & Winter, 2013; Bentz et al., 2015; Britain & Trudgil, 2005; Kerswill, 2013; Kerswill & Williams, 2000; Lupyan & Dale, 2010; McWhorter, 2007; Nettle, 2012; Nichols & Bentz, 2017; Sampson et al., 2009; Siegel, 1985; Trudgill, 1986, 2001a; 2001b, 2010a, 2010b, 2011a, 2011b). These new varieties with their mixed paradigms and abundant morphological variation are the basis of spoken BP.
The standard written language for BP is markedly different, however, since it was artificially created at the end of the nineteenth century on a largely EP model (Faraco & Zilles, 2017). The reasons for this were ideological and political. In the newly established Brazilian Republic, the elites were grappling with the social realities of their country, especially the racial ones, and were highly influenced by ideas originating in Europe. A continent which represented modernity and progress and was the model to imitate. In linguistic terms, this translated into basing the standard language (largely though not exclusively) on that of the old metropolis, even though this was linguistically very distant from virtually all of the Brazilian population. The rational for this decision was that it was considered that the standard language should have fixed forms and rules and constitute something which has been elaborated and endorsed by an elite group of experts. The differences between this standard and spoken BP were not seen as a problem. On the contrary, it was considered a positive aspect that people might have to strive to learn this standard since it was hypothesized that this would also bring about positive civilising effects. Unfortunately, however, there was never the political will or public investment to ensure that this standard was taught to the illiterate masses from the establishment of this standard until the modern era. At this point, the differences between spoken BP and the written standard were numerous. This fact is not, in itself, a problem for speaker’s engagement with and acceptance of the standard language. Many languages display significant linguistic differences between the official written standard and the actual every-day speech of its speakers, for example German.6 In Germany, however, the standard (Hochdeutsch) is accepted as the legitimate form of written language. Moreover, in Germany, there is, and historically has been, the political will and material resources to ensure that this standard is successfully taught in schools. This has not been the case with the standard norm in Brazil historically (O’Neill, 2022, p. 13–16), which ultimately resulted in its legitimacy being compromised since its artificiality was fiercely condemned by linguistics and teachers alike. In fact, the legitimacy of the standard-norm became so compromised that teachers claimed that they did not teach this norm but another type of standard language, termed the norma culta ‘educated norm’ (Soares Gomes, 2019, p. 22). This educated norm (Faraco, 2008) is typical of the speech of the educated and affluent who live in the major urban centres, and it does not usually correspond, not even in formal, monitored contexts, to the grammatical characteristics of the traditional standard norm. This educated norm is the de facto norm which many speakers aspire to. However, due to a lack of comprehensive, codified accounts of the features of this norm (Faraco, 2017, p. 23; Moura Neves, 2002, p. 239) and its lack of official status, it is a nebulous concept (O’Neill, 2022, p. 15–16) and so cannot really be termed a ‘norm’ but rather a set of linguistic tendencies which roughly correspond to the written language in (some) newspapers and (some) other formal materials and to the spoken linguistic habits of the educated. However, given Brazil’s size and population, there are many educated individuals and thus there are many different regional educated norms = linguistic tendencies (Faraco & Zilles, 2017, pp. 184–186), including different tendencies for speaking and writing.
What the foregoing reveals is that due to a number of factors (artificiality of the written standard, loss of legitimacy of this standard, lack of investment in education) Brazilian speakers came to become alienated from the traditional official standard. For many speakers, it did not represent something to be actively acquired, since this position was occupied by the educated norm. This norm, however, was not fixed or prescriptive but an organic development characterised by a number of linguistic tendencies. Tendencies, by their nature, are variable and elastic. It is this relationship with the written standard that, in our opinion, approximates Brazilian society to those societies characterised by idiosyncratic variation. It is not the case that there is no official standard for BP, or speakers are excluded from the written standard. Rather, they are alienated from it and do not actively engage with it. In monitored contexts, they aim to speak or write a form of the language which is flexible and highly variable.
5.3. Conclusion
This study has analysed the variation present in sg.imper in BP. Specifically, the consistent use of the você subject pronoun with the alternative use of imperatives deriving historically from the paradigm for this pronoun (v-imper, faça ‘do!’) vs. those deriving from the paradigm for the subject pronoun tu (t-imper, faz ‘do!’). Previous studies noted the extent of variation between these imperatives and highlighted its diatopic tendencies and specific pragmatic (immediacy) and grammatical (negative polarity) conditions, which were correlated with the use of t-imper and v-imper respectively. We proposed a social conditioning factor loosely related to the concepts of deferential/non-deferential address that could perhaps derive the effects of these two aforementioned factors. We designed an experiment to test the effects of this factor, but our results were inconclusive. Although there were reliable effects for our hypothesized social factor in the speech of one city, there was much intra- and inter-individual variation. We entertained the idea that such partial effects could be on account that the hypothesized morphological distinction was a change-in-process which (a) had originated around the city of São Paulo, (b) had only made inroads into the positive imperatives and not the negative imperatives, and (c) had not yet spread to other cities of the South East of Brazil. However, given the high levels of individual variation present in both the sg.imper and pl.imper (O’Neill, 2024) we considered the hypothesis that, despite some tendencies in the data, the overall generalisation was that there was much idiosyncratic variation. We discussed this concept and related the prevalence and acceptance of IV in BP to the fact that for complex historical and social reasons, Brazilians have become alienated from their official standard language and do not actively engage with it or seek to acquire it. Rather, they aim to acquire an educated form of the language which is not codified and is highly variable. Although our participant pool was not representative of the broader Brazilian population – most had university education – our study uniquely focused on individual outputs, unlike many previous studies. This has allowed us to demonstrate the extent of inter- and intra-speaker variation and to show that while some speakers are (or are close to being) categorical in their choice of forms, others are not. That is, our findings underscore the presence of idiosyncratic variation.
IV has largely been ignored in the linguistic literature since it contradicts some fundamental tenets of variationist sociolinguistics: namely that linguistic variation is not random and that grammars tend to become focussed and stable over time. Despite much evidence supporting the aforementioned tenets, we suggest that data from BP, together with data from other studies on IV, support the idea that such tenets may not be universal but rather the result of societies with established standard languages and the concomitant standard language ideologies (see Milroy, 2001 for an overview of how ideologies have effected linguistics). Dorian notes (2010a, p. 235) “the fact that one sort of social organization is exceptionally well entrenched and widely distributed in regions of the world that are more likely than others to produce linguists cannot be taken to mean that that particular social organization and its linguistic effects are universal or that its historical depth is great.” We concur and suggest that IV needs to be taken more seriously as a linguistic phenomenon, rather than as a transitory stage toward grammatical stability and categorical predictability. The prevailing assumption that all variation must be explainable – and that randomness has no place in language – may need to be re-evaluated. As our data suggest, it might be time to acknowledge that not all variation requires an orderly logic to be valid or worthy of study.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Gisela Favaro (UNESP) and Thiago Nascimento (UFMG) for their help with the experiments and in contacting informants.
Competing Interests
The authors have no competing interests to declare.
Notes
- Note that although others have called this refunctionalization (Smith, 2011), exaptation (Lass, 1990, 1997; Norde, 2002; Vincent, 1995) and even regrammaticalization (Greenberg, 1991). [^]
- Others results for São Paulo are: 70% v-imper against 30% t-imper for negative non-immediate contexts; 75% t-imper against 25% v-imper for affirmative immediate contexts; 63% t-imper against 37% v-imper for negative non-immediate contexts. [^]
- More information can be found here https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/rpi/ethics-integrity/urec. [^]
- Verbs classed as irregular were those which had an irregular allomorphic root in both the prs.sbj and the pret. [^]
- Frequency was calculated using the corpusdosportuguês.com (Davies, 2016) in which the token frequency counts of each inflectional form produced by speakers for the different lexemes were noted. However, t-imper almost always coincide with 3sg.prs.ind forms, which are always more frequent than 1/3sg.prs.sbj forms, which are syncretic with the v-imper. It was not feasible to try and disambiguate imper from non-imper forms in the corpus, not only due to time constraints but also because imperatives occur far more frequently in spoken than in written language. This raises concerns about the reliability of written corpora for estimating imperative frequencies. Consequently, the statistical model produced reliable effects for the variable frequency. This was an error in the experimental design. Instead of the token frequency of individual inflectional forms, the overall total frequency of the lexemes should have been the frequency values. In this way, one could establish whether a frequent verb such as fazer ‘do’ is more likely to have a non-standard imperative than a less frequent verb, such as pular ‘jump’. [^]
- The differences between the German written standard (Hochdeutsch) and the regionale Umgangssprachen used by the overwhelming majority of Germans in their daily interactions is significant (Watts, 2000). [^]
References
Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2010). Imperatives and commands. Oxford University Press.
Andrade, C. Q., Melo, F. G. D., & Scherre, M. M. P. (2007). História e variação linguística: Um estudo em tempo real do imperativo gramatical em revistas em quadrinhos da Turma da Mônica [History and linguistic variation: A real-time study of the grammatical imperative in Turma da Mônica comics]. Finos Leitores: Jornal de Letras, 3(1), 1–12. http://www.uniceub.br/periodicos/default.asp
Anthonissen, L. (2021). Language, migration and social inequalities: A critical sociolinguistic perspective. De Gruyter Mouton. http://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725841
Arduin, J. (2005). A variação dos pronomes possessivos de segunda pessoa do singular teu/seu na região sul do Brasil. [The Variation of Second-Person Singular Possessive Pronouns teu/seu in the Southern Region of Brazil] Unpublished dissertation (MA), Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.
Auer, P., Hinskens, F., & Kerswill, P. (2005). Dialect change: Convergence and divergence in European languages. Cambridge University Press.
Barbosa, P., de Paiva, M. de C., & Rodrigues, C. (2017). Studies on variation in Portuguese. John Benjamins. https://books.google.de/books?id=Hs86DwAAQBAJ
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., Walker, S. (2015). lme4: Linear Mixed-Eff ects Models UsingEigen and S4.Rpackage version 1.1–10, URL http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lme4
Beaman, K. V., & Guy, G. R. (2022). The coherence of linguistic communities: Orderly heterogeneity and social meaning. Routledge. https://books.google.cz/books?id=0BjNzgEACAAJ
Bentz, C., Verkerk, A., Kiela, D., Hill, F., & Buttery, P. (2015). Adaptive communication: Languages with more non-native speakers tend to have fewer word forms. PLoS ONE, 10(6), e0128254. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128254
Bentz, C., & Winter, B. (2013). Languages with more second language learners tend to lose nominal case. Language Dynamics and Change, 3(1), 1–27. http://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-13030105
Blythe, R., & Croft, W. (2021). How individuals change language. Plos one, 16(6), e0252582. ArXiv. http://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2104.10210
Bolinger, D. L. M. (1956). Subjunctive -ra and -se: “Free variation”? Hispania, 39(3), 345–349. http://doi.org/10.2307/336019
Britain, D., & Trudgill, P. (2005). New dialect formation and contact-induced reallocation: Three case studies from the English fens. International Journal of English Studies, 5(1), 183–209. http://doi.org/10.6018/ijes.5.1.47951
Brown, J. (2020). Language history from below: Standardization and koineization in Renaissance Italy. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, 6(1), 1–28. http://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2018-0017
Bülow, L., & Pfenninger, S. E. (2021). Introduction: Reconciling approaches to intra-individual variation in psycholinguistics and variationist sociolinguistics. Linguistics Vanguard, 7, 1–10. http://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2020-0027
Bülow, L., Scheutz, H., & Wallner, D. (2019). Variation and change of plural verbs in Salzburg’s base dialects. In K. J. Braunmüller & K. Kazzazi (Eds.), Variation and change in morphosyntactic dialectal systems (pp. 95–134). John Benjamins. http://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.207.04bul
Bybee, J. (1988). Morphology as lexical organization. In M. Hammond & M. Noonan (Eds.), Theoretical morphology: Approaches in modern linguistics (pp. 119–141). Academic Press.
Bybee, J. (1995). Regular morphology and the lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes, 10(5), 425–455. http://doi.org/10.1080/01690969508407111
Bybee, J. (2010). Diachronic linguistics. In D. Geeraerts & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 945–987). Oxford University Press. http://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199738632.013.0036
Bybee, J. L. (2001). Phonology and language use. Cambridge University Press.
Caramazza, A., Laudanna, A., & Burani, C. (1988). Lexical access and inflectional morphology. Cognition, 28(3), 297–332. http://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(88)90025-8
Cardeira, E. A. (2009). Revisitando a periodização do português: O português médio [Revisiting the periodization of Portuguese: Middle Portuguese]. Domínios de Lingu@gem: Revista Eletrônica de Linguística, 3(2), 103–120. http://doi.org/10.14393/DL6-v3n2a2009-7
Cardeira, E. A., & Fernandes, M. A. (2008). O português medieval: koinização e elaboração [Medieval Portuguese: Koineization and elaboration]. Veredas: Revista da Associação Internacional de Lusitanistas, 9, 155–176. https://revistaveredas.org/index.php/ver/article/view/20
Cardona, G. (1997). Pāṇini: His Work and Its Traditions. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Cardoso, D. B. B. (2006). O imperativo gramatical no português brasileiro [The grammatical imperative in Brazilian Portuguese]. Revista de Estudos da Linguagem, 14(2), 317–340. http://doi.org/10.17851/2237-2083.14.2.317-340
Carreira, M. H. A. (2004). Les formes allocutives du portugais européen: Évolutions, valeurs et fonctionnements discursifs [The allocutive forms of European Portuguese: Evolutions, values, and discourse functions]. In Coloquio Pronombres de Segunda Persona y Formas de Tratamiento en las Lenguas de Europa. Paris. https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/coloquio_paris/ponencias/pdf/cvc_araujo.pdf
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. MIT Press.
Clark, E. V. (1987). The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition (pp. 1–33). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Clemens, C. (2014). Brazilian Portuguese and the ecology of (post-)colonial Brazil. In S. S. Mufwene (Ed.), Iberian imperialism and language evolution in Latin America (pp. 186–204). The University of Chicago Press.
Corbett, G., Hippisley, A., & Brown, D. (2001). Frequency, regularity and the paradigm: A perspective from Russian on a complex relation. In J. Bybee & P. Hooper (Eds.), Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure (pp. 91–116). John Benjamins.
Dąbrowska, E. (2012). Different speakers, different grammars: Individual differences in native language attainment. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 2(3), 219–253. http://doi.org/10.1075/lab.2.3.02dab
Dąbrowska, E. (2018). Experience, aptitude and individual differences in native language ultimate attainment. Cognition, 178, 222–235. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.05.018
Davies, M. (2016) Corpus do português: web/dialects. Retrieved from http://www.corpusdoportugues.org/web-dial/
Dorian, N. C. (2010a). Investigating variation: The effects of social organization and social setting. Oxford University Press. http://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/978
Dorian, N. C. (2010b). Socially neutral linguistic variation: Where, why, what for, and how? In Investigating variation: The effects of social organization and social setting (p. 271–296). Oxford University Press. http://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195385939.003.0008
Eckert, P. (2012). Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology, 41, 87–100. http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145828
Ellis, R. (1985). Sources of variability in interlanguage. Applied Linguistics, 6(2), 118–131. http://doi.org/10.1093/applin/6.2.118
Entringer, N. (2021). Inter- and intra-individual variation in Luxembourgish: A quantitative analysis of crowd-sourced speech data. In A. Werth, L. Bülow, S. E. Pfenninger, & M. Schiegg (Eds.), Intra-individual variation in language (pp. 243–282). De Gruyter Mouton.
Faraco, C. A. (1996). O tratamento “você” em português: Uma abordagem histórica [The use of “você” in Portuguese: A historical approach]. Fragmenta, 13, 51–82.
Faraco, C. A. (2008). Norma culta brasileira: Desatando alguns nós [Brazilian standard language: Untangling some knots]. Parábola Editorial.
Faraco, C. A. (2017). Gramática e ensino [Grammar and teaching]. Diadorim, 19(2), 11–26. http://doi.org/10.35520/diadorim.2017.v19n2a14443
Faraco, C. A., & Zilles, A. M. S. (2017). Para conhecer norma linguística [Getting to know the linguistic norm]. Contexto.
Fasold, R. W. (1975). Influences on social lect level: Where you are and where your head is. Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Finbow, T., & O’Neill, P. (2021). Koinéization and language contact: The social causes of morphological change in and with Portuguese. In A. Ledgeway, J. C. Smith, & N. Vincent (Eds.), Periphrasis and inflexion in diachrony: A view from Romance (pp. 381–412). Oxford University Press.
Gouveia, C. A. M. (2008). As dimensões da mudança no uso das formas de tratamento em português europeu [The dimensions of change in the use of forms of address in European Portuguese]. In I. M. Duarte & F. Oliveira (Eds.), O fascínio da linguagem (pp. 91–100). Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto.
Greenberg, J. H. (1991). The last stages of grammatical elements: Contractive and expansive desemanticization. In E. C. Traugott & B. Heine (Eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization (Vol. 1, pp. 301–314). John Benjamins.
Guy, G. R. (1983). Linguistic variation in Brazilian Portuguese: Aspects of the phonology, syntax, and language history. University of Pennsylvania.
Guy, G. R., & Hinskens, F. (2016). Linguistic coherence: Systems, repertoires and speech communities. Lingua, 172–173, 1–9. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2016.01.001
Guy, G. R., Oushiro, L., & Mendes, R. B. (2022). Indexicality and coherence. In K. V. Beaman & G. R. Guy (Eds.), The coherence of linguistic communities: Orderly heterogeneity and social meaning (pp. 53–68). Routledge.
Hare, M. L., Ford, M., & Marslen-Wilson, W. (2001). Ambiguity and frequency effects in regular verb inflection. In J. Bybee & P. Hopper (Eds.), Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure (pp. 181–200). John Benjamins.
Hymes, D. (1979). Sapir, competence, voices. In C. J. Fillmore, D. Kempler, & W. S.-Y. Wang (Eds.), Individual differences in language ability and language behavior (pp. 33–45). Academic Press.
Johnson, M. F. (2013). The pragmatic alternation between two negative imperatives in Argentinian Spanish. Unpublished dissertation (PhD), The Ohio State University.
Johnson, M. F. (2016). Pragmatic variation in voseo and tuteo negative commands in Argentinian Spanish. In M. Hummel, B. Kluge, & M. E. Vázquez Laslop (Eds.), Forms of address in the Spanish of the Americas (pp. 127–148). John Benjamins. https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027267009-ihll.10.07joh
Johnstone, B. (1996). The linguistic individual: Self-expression in language and linguistics. Oxford University Press. http://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195101843.001.0001
Kaufmann, S. (2002). The presumption of settledness. Chicago Linguistic Society, 38, 313–328.
Kaufmann, S. (2005). Conditional truth and future reference. Journal of Semantics, 22(3), 231–280. http://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffh025
Kerswill, P. (2004). Koineization and accommodation. In J. K. Chambers, P. Trudgill, & N. Schilling-Estes (Eds.), The handbook of language variation and change (pp. 669–702). Blackwell. http://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756591.ch26
Kerswill, P. (2013). Koineization. In J. K. Chambers & N. Schilling (Eds.), The handbook of language variation and change (2nd ed., pp. 519–536). Wiley-Blackwell. http://doi.org/10.1002/9781118335598.ch24
Kerswill, P., & Williams, A. N. (2000). Creating a New Town koine: Children and language change in Milton Keynes. Language in Society, 29, 65–115. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500001020
Kopf, K., & Weber, T. (2023). Free variation in grammar: Empirical and theoretical approaches. John Benjamins.
Labov, W. (2001). Principles of linguistic change: Social factors. Blackwell. https://books.google.de/books?id=LS_Ux3CEI5QC
Lamberti, L., & Schwenter, S. (2018). Testando o papel da referência temporal na forma do imperativo em português brasileiro [Testing the role of temporal reference in the form of the imperative in Brazilian Portuguese]. Revista Linguíʃtica, 14, 231–258. http://doi.org/10.31513/linguistica.2018.v14n2a17625
Lass, R. (1990). How to do things with junk: Exaptation in language evolution. Journal of Linguistics, 26(1), 79–102. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226700014432
Lass, R. (1997). Historical linguistics and language change. Cambridge University Press. http://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620928
Le Page, R. B., & Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985). Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and ethnicity. Cambridge University Press. https://books.google.de/books?id=cbQ8AAAAIAAJ
Lupyan, G., & Dale, R. (2010). Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PLoS ONE, 5(1), e8559. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008559
MacKenzie, L. (2019). Perturbing the community grammar: Individual differences and community-level constraints on sociolinguistic variation. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1), 28:1–28:23. http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.622
McWhorter, J. H. (2007). Language interrupted: Signs of non-native acquisition in standard language grammars. Oxford University Press.
Menon, O. P. (1995). O sistema pronominal do português do Brasil [The pronominal system of Brazilian Portuguese]. Letras, 44, 91–106.
Menon, O. P., & Loregian-Penkal, L. (2003). Variação do indivíduo e da comunidade: Tu/você no sul do Brasil [Individual and community variation: Tu/você in southern Brazil]. In P. Vandresen (Ed.), Variação e mudança no português falado no sul (pp. 147–188). Editora Educat.
Milroy, J. (2001). Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 5(4), 530–555. http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00163
Milroy, J., & Milroy, L. (1999). Authority in language: Investigating Standard English (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://books.google.de/books?id=z3HNztsa0ooC
Moore, E., & Carter, P. (2015). Dialect contact and distinctiveness: The social meaning of language variation in an island community. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 19(1), 3–36. http://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12107
Moser, A. M. (2023). Optionality in the syntax of Germanic traditional dialects: On (at least) two types of intra-individual variation. In K. Kopf & T. Weber (Eds.), Free variation in grammar: Empirical and theoretical approaches (pp. 48–73). John Benjamins.
Moura Neves, M. H. de. (2002). A gramática: História, teoria e análise, ensino [Grammar: History, theory, analysis, and teaching]. Editora UNESP.
Mowrey, R., & Pagliuca, W. (1995). The reductive character of articulatory evolution. Rivista di Linguistica, 7, 37–124.
Naro, A. J., & Scherre, M. M. P. (2007). Origens do português brasileiro [Origins of Brazilian Portuguese] (Vol. 20). Parábola Editorial.
Nettle, D. (2012). Social scale and structural complexity in human languages. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1597), 1829–1836. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0216
Nichols, J., & Bentz, C. (2017). Morphological complexity of languages reflects the settlement history of the Americas. In K. Harvati, G. Jäger, & H. Reyes-Centeno (Eds.), New perspectives on the peopling of the Americas (pp. 13–26). Kerns Verlag.
Norde, M. (2002). The final stages of grammaticalization: Affixhood and beyond. In I. Wischer & G. Diewald (Eds.), New reflections on grammaticalization (pp. 45–81). John Benjamins. http://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.49.06nor
O’Neill, P. (2022). Language and education in Brazil: Linguistic structural problems and their historical origins. Modern Languages Open, 2022(1), 1–21. http://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.384
Oliveira, J. M. (2017). O imperativo gramatical nas capitais do Nordeste: análise sociolinguística de dados do ALiB [The grammatical imperative in the capitals of the Northeast: Sociolinguistic analysis of ALiB data]. In N. S. Lopes, J. M. Oliveira, & L. M. J. Parcero (Eds.), Estudos sobre o português do Nordeste: Língua, lugar e sociedade (pp. 27–44). Blucher. http://doi.org/10.5151/9788580392395-02
Paredes Silva, V. L., Santos, G. M. dos, & Ribeiro, T. dos. (2000). Variação na 2ª pessoa: O pronome sujeito e a forma do imperativo [Variation in the 2nd person: The subject pronoun and the imperative form]. Gragoatá, 9, 115–123.
Penkal, L. (2004). Re(análise) da referência de segunda pessoa na fala da região sul [Re(analysis) of second-person reference in speech from the southern region] (Unpublished MA dissertation). Universidade Federal do Paraná.
Penny, R. J. (2000). Variation and change in Spanish. Cambridge University Press.
Perini, M. A. (2003). Sofrendo a gramática. Ática.
Pessoa, M. D. B. (2003). Formação de uma variedade urbana e semi-oralidade: O caso do Recife, Brasil [Formation of an urban variety and semi-orality: The case of Recife, Brazil]. Niemeyer.
R Core Team. ( 2018). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna.
Sampaio, D. A. (2001). Modo imperativo: Sua manifestação/expressão no português contemporâneo [Imperative mood: Its manifestation/expression in contemporary Portuguese] (Unpublished undergraduate thesis). Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil.
Sampson, G., Gil, D., & Trudgill, P. (2009). Language complexity as an evolving variable. Oxford University Press.
Scherre, M. M. P. (2002). A norma do imperativo e o imperativo da norma: Uma reflexão sociolinguística sobre o conceito de erro [The norm of the imperative and the imperative of the norm: A sociolinguistic reflection on the concept of error]. In M. Bagno (Ed.), Linguística da norma (pp. 217–251). Loyola.
Scherre, M. M. P. (2003). Norma e uso na expressão do imperativo em revistas em quadrinhos da Turma da Mônica [Norm and usage in the expression of the imperative in Turma da Mônica comics]. In D. E. G. da Silva, G. M. P. Lara, & M. A. Magazzo (Orgs.), Estudos de linguagem – Inter – relações e perspectivas (pp. 177–191). Campo Grande: UFMS.
Scherre, M. M. P. (2004). Norma e uso – O imperativo no português brasileiro [Norm and usage – The imperative in Brazilian Portuguese]. In W. Dietrich & V. Noll (Eds.), O português do Brasil: Perspectivas da pesquisa atual (Vol. 1, pp. 231–260). Iberoamericana – Vervuert.
Scherre, M. M. P. (2007). Aspectos sincrônicos e diacrônicos do imperativo gramatical no português brasileiro [Synchronic and diachronic aspects of the grammatical imperative in Brazilian Portuguese]. Alfa: Revista de Linguística, 51(1), 189–222. https://periodicos.fclar.unesp.br/alfa/article/view/1432/1133
Scherre, M. M. P. (2008). O imperativo gramatical no português brasileiro: Reflexo de mudança linguística na escrita de revistas de quadrinhos [The grammatical imperative in Brazilian Portuguese: Reflection of linguistic change in comics]. In S. Votre & C. Roncarati (Eds.), A linguística no Brasil: Uma homenagem acadêmica (pp. 306–319). 7Letras.
Scherre, M. M. P. (2012). Padrões sociolinguísticos do português brasileiro: A importância da pesquisa variacionista [Sociolinguistic patterns of Brazilian Portuguese: The importance of variationist research]. Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudo de Linguagens, 4, 1–32. http://doi.org/10.35499/tl.v0i4.167
Scherre, M. M. P., Cardoso, D. B. B., Lunguinho, M. V., & Salles, H. (2007). Reflexões sobre o imperativo em português [Reflections on the imperative in Portuguese]. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Linguística Teórica e Aplicada, 23, 193–241. http://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-44502007000300010
Scherre, M. M. P., Dias, E. P., Andrade, C., & Martins, G. F. (2015). Variação dos pronomes “tu” e “você” [Variation of the pronouns “tu” and “você”]. In M. A. Martins & J. Abraçado (Eds.), Mapeamento sociolinguístico do português brasileiro (pp. 133–172). São Paulo: Contexto.
Scherre, M. M. P., & Naro, A. J. (1998). Sobre a concordância de número no português falado do Brasil [On number agreement in spoken Brazilian Portuguese]. In G. Ruffino (Ed.), Dialettologia, geolinguistica, sociolinguistica: Atti del XXI Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza (pp. 509–523). Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Scherre, M. M. P., & Naro, A. J. (2014). Sociolinguistic correlates of negative evaluation: Variable concord in Rio de Janeiro. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics, 26(3), 331–357. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394514000143
Schieffelin, B. B., Woolard, K. A., & Kroskrity, P. V. (1998). Language ideologies: Practice and theory. Oxford University Press. https://books.google.cz/books?id=yHVOcjr5R-cC
Schilling-Estes, N. (1998). Investigating “self-conscious” speech: The performance register in Ocracoke English. Language in Society, 27(1), 53–83. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500019722
Schwenter, S., & Hoff, M. (2023). The role of context in imperative form choice. In R. Rodríguez Rosique & J. M. Antolí Martínez (Eds.), Verb and context: The impact of shared knowledge on TAME categories (pp. 327–350). John Benjamins.
Siegel, J. (1985). Koines and koineization. Language in Society, 14(3), 357–378. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500011313
Smith, J. C. (2011). Change and continuity in form-function relationships. In J. C. Smith, M. Maiden, & A. Ledgeway (Eds.), The Romance Languages (Vol. 1, pp. 268–317). Cambridge University Press. http://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521800723.008
Soares Gomes, M. (2019). A gramática pedagógica do português brasileiro (Bagno, 2012) e o ensino de gramática [The pedagogical grammar of Brazilian Portuguese (Bagno, 2012) and grammar teaching] (Unpublished undergraduate thesis). Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará.
Stemberger, J., & MacWhinney, B. (1988). Are inflected forms stored in the lexicon? In M. Hammond & M. Noonan (Eds.), Theoretical morphology: Approaches in modern linguistics (pp. 101–116). Academic Press.
Stevens, M. H. J. (2022). Individual variation and the coarticulatory path to sound change: Agent-based modeling of /str/ in English and Italian. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 7(1), 1–34. http://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.8869
Stuart-Smith, J., & Timmins, C. (2010). The role of the individual in language variation and change. In C. Llamas & D. Watt (Eds.), Language and identities (pp. 39–54). Edinburgh University Press. http://doi.org/10.1515/9780748635788-008
Thomason, R., & Gupta, A. (1980). A theory of conditionals in the context of branching time. The Philosophical Review, 89(1), 65–90. http://doi.org/10.2307/2184864
Thornton, A. M. (2012). Reduction and maintenance of overabundance: A case study on Italian verb paradigms. Word Structure, 5(2), 183–207. http://doi.org/10.3366/word.2012.0026
Thornton, A. M. (2019). Overabundance: A canonical typology. In F. Rainer, F. Gardani, W. U. Dressler, & H. C. Luschützky (Eds.), Competition in inflection and word-formation (pp. 223–258). Springer International Publishing. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02550-2_9
Trudgill, P. (1986). Dialects in contact. Blackwell.
Trudgill, P. (2001a). Contact and simplification: Historical baggage and directionality in linguistic change. Linguistic Typology, 5(2–3), 371–374. http://doi.org/10.1515/lity.2001.002
Trudgill, P. (2001b). Sociolinguistic variation and change. Edinburgh University Press. http://doi.org/10.1515/9781474473330
Trudgill, P. (2004). New-dialect formation: the inevitability of colonial englishes (1 ed.). Edinburgh University Press. http://doi.org/10.3366/j.ctv2f4vkzd
Trudgill, P. (2008). Colonial dialect contact in the history of European languages: On the irrelevance of identity to new-dialect formation. Language in Society, 37(2), 241–254. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404508080287
Trudgill, P. (2010). Investigations in sociohistorical linguistics: Stories of colonisation and contact. Cambridge University Press. http://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511760501
Trudgill, P. (2011). Sociolinguistic typology: Social determinants of linguistic complexity. Oxford University Press.
Tuten, D. N. (2003). Koineization in medieval Spanish. Mouton de Gruyter.
Tuten, D. N. (2008). Identity formation and accommodation: Sequential and simultaneous relations. Language in Society, 37(2), 259–262. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404508080305
Tuten, D. N. (2023). La formación de nuevas variedades: koineización y criollización [The formation of new varieties: koineization and creolization]. In S. N. Dworkin, G. Clavería, & Á. S. Octavio de Toledo (Eds.), Lingüística histórica del español: the Routledge handbook of Spanish historical linguistics (pp. 123–134). Routledge.
Van Olmen, D. (2024). Are asymmetries in imperative negation based in usage? Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads, 4(2), 158–219. http://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2785-0943/19446
Veríssimo, J., & Clahsen, H. (2009). Morphological priming by itself: A study of Portuguese conjugations. Cognition, 112(1), 187–194. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.04.003
Vincent, N. (1995). Exaptation and grammaticalization. In H. Andersen (Ed.), Historical linguistics 1993 (Vol. 124, pp. 433–446). John Benjamins. http://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.124.34vin
Watts, S. (2000). Teaching talk: Should students learn ‘real German’?. German as a Foreign Language, 1, 64–82. http://www.gfl-journal.de/Issue_1_2000.php
Weinreich, U., Labov, W., & Herzog, M. (1968). Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. In W. Lehmann & Y. Malkiel (Eds.), Directions for historical linguistics (pp. 95–195). University of Texas Press. https://books.google.de/books?id=Wr1CAAAAIAAJ
Werth, A., Bülow, L., Pfenninger, S. E., & Schiegg, M. (2021). Intra-individual variation in language. De Gruyter Mouton. http://doi.org/10.1515/9783110743036
Wolfram, W., & Beckett, D. (2000). The role of the individual and group in earlier African American English. American Speech, 75(1), 3–33. http://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-75-1-3