Anaphoric temporal locators in European and Brazilian Portuguese

This paper is an attempt to describe the main differences between European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) concerning the form and the use of anaphoric temporal locators. I concentrate on two types of locators: locators with demonstratives (Section 3) and locators with vague time expressions (Section 4). With respect to the former type, I propose that the opposition between locators headed by an explicit operator and locators headed by an implicit operation interacts with deixis and anaphora dependencies. As for the latter type, I restrict myself to the presentation of lexical and semantic differences between the two varieties.


Introduction
As many times pointed out in the literature, demonstrative pronouns play a crucial role in the expression of deixis and anaphora dependencies.The study presented in this paper shows that there exist interesting differences regarding the use of such pronouns in EP and BP.Section 3 is devoted to the presentation of such differences, with a particular focus on the temporal location domain.A closer look at temporal locators with demonstrativese.g., neste ano ("in_this year", this year), esta semana ("this week", this week)reveals the existence of na interaction between the referential properties of these locators and the presence vs. absence of an explicit operator heading them.
Differences between EP and BP with respect to locators of this type are mainly lexical.As a consequence, no important theoretical issues will be discussed in that subsection.
The data presented are mainly extracted from two on-line corpora: the NILC-São Carlos Corpus (henceforth, NILC) for Brazilian Portuguese, and Natura/Público (henceforth, NP) for European Portuguese.NILC contains 32.091.996words, most of them (85%) extracted from newspaper text and the rest from didactic material and business letters.NP contains 6.257.950words extracted from the daily newspaper Público.Access to these corpora is provided by Linguateca at http://www.linguateca.pt/ACDC/.Given obvious space constraints, texts from the corpora will not be translated.
As proposed in Alves 2003, locators of this type interact with discourse structure.According to several discourse theories, as for instance Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (cf.Asher 1993) or Rhetorical Structure Theory (cf.Mann and Thompson 1987), all the segments in a coherent discourse are connected to each other by means of discourse relations (cf.Lascarides and Asher 1991).The locators at stake may be compatible or incompatible with such discourse relations (henceforth DR).Compare sequences (a) and (b) below with sequence (c): ( In sequence (a), the natural interpretation is that the second sentence elaborates on the first, and that the second situation is part of the situation previously mentioned.In terms of discourse structure, the second sentence is connected to the first by a DR called Elaboration.The locator durante esse tempo ("during that time"), in (b), is compatible with such DR, that is, it does not block the inferences at issue, whereas enquanto isso ("meanwhile"), in (c), does block them.We no longer infer that the second situation is part of the first and, consequently, that the second sentence is an elaboration of the first.Similarly, in (6) below, only in (a) we are able to infer that Ana missed school because she was sick, and, consequently, that the second sentence is connected to the first by the DR Result.
Ana was sick last month.She missed school.
The introduction of simultaneamente ("simultaneously") in (b) blocks the above mentioned inferences.In the only possible interpretation of (b), the two situations took place at the same time but the first does not cause the second.

Locators with demonstratives
In this section, I'll concentrate on locators with demonstratives, such as neste ano ("this year"), nessa semana ("that week") or naquele mês ("that month").Even though differences concerning demonstrative pronouns are a matter that primarily belongs to the determination domain, it is worth studying its impact on the temporal location system.I start with a brief presentation of what grammars say about the demonstrative system in Portuguese and then describe their actual use in EP and BP.
According to contemporary normative and descriptive grammars5 , Portuguese has a three-form demonstrative system, as presented in the table below:
In European Portuguese the use of demonstratives matches what these grammars suggest.Let us observe some illustrative cases.If a speaker is referring to a book he is reading, to a cake he is eating or to a table he is eating at, he must use este, as shown in ( 7), ( 8) and ( 9 Turning back to the temporal domain and to temporal locators in particular, we notice the following in EP: only este can be used in deixis contexts and the value it conveys is temporal proximity.For instance, if we are talking about the calendar year (or week) that includes the utterance time, este is the appropriate pronominal form, not esse or aquele.
(10) Este ano houve menos acidentes de viação do que no ano passado."This year there-was less accidents of car than in-the year passed."This year there were fewer car accidents than last year.
(11) *{Nesse / Naquele} ano houve menos acidentes de viação do que no ano passado."In {that / that} year there-was less accidents of car than in-the year past."That year there were fewer car accidents than last year.
(12) Esta semana tenho trabalhado muito."This week Ø I have worked much."This week I have been working hard.
As for anaphora contexts, the three demonstrative forms may intervene in locators with such dependency: ( 14) "Com uma ligeira queda logo no primeiro dia da semana, a Bolsa de Londres viria a registar a maior desvalorização da semana na terça-feira (...In Brazilian Portuguese, nevertheless, we find a similar situation with respect to este and aquele, but a different situation as far as esse is concerned: contemporary normative and descriptive grammars indicate the demonstrative este as the appropriate form to be used in deixis cases (conveying proximity to the speaker), but speaker judgements and corpora show that the use of esse in such contexts is also possible.For instance, according to speakers coming from the São Paulo area, the form esse is acceptable in contexts similar to those presented in ( 7), ( 8 If we restrict ourselves to the temporal domain and to temporal locators, another difference between EP and BP should be mentioned at this point.This difference concerns the presence vs. the absence of an explicit temporal operator em ("in") heading temporal locators.In Portuguese, as in other languages, some locators are headed by an explicit em, whereas with some others this operator is not visible but arguably implicit.In this respect, Móia 2000 (cf.also Móia & Alves, this volume) distinguishes three cases: the presence of the preposition is mandatory; (ii) the absence of the preposition is mandatory; (iii) the presence of the preposition is optional.Let us see what the case of locators with demonstratives is, starting with the European variety.In EP, the presence of an explicit operator em is optional in deictic locators with este.In ( 24) and ( 25 According to the corpus, the first structure is clearly preferred to the second, with 875 occurrences against 34.
On the other hand, it is worth emphasising that in anaphoric locators with este the presence of the preposition is mandatory, as shown below: (26) a.In BP the picture is as follows: in the case of deictic locators with este, esse and aquele, the preposition is optional.As for deictic locators with aquele, a single case was found in the corpus, where it seems that aquele ano is in a shifted deixis context.So, in deixis cases, BP parallels EP in showing a clear preference for locators with an implicit preposition.In anaphoric locators with este, esse and aquele, the presence of em is mandatory The data presented so far led me to conclude that in both varieties of Portuguese the presence vs. the absence of an explicit em correlates with the referential value of the temporal locators: the preposition is mandatory in cases of anaphora but optional in cases of deixis, where there seems to be a clear preference for an implicit em.If this is so, a table with the referential properties of demonstrative locators in these two varieties should look as in Table IV.In order to make the picture more perspicuous, a table with the figures concerning the occurrences of some locators with demonstratives is added below (cf.Table V).

Referentially vague time expressions
Temporal expressions, in particular anaphoric ones, exhibit a considerable variety from both the syntactic and the semantic point of view.On the semantic side, one of the relevant distinctions pulls apart temporal expressions with predicative content and referentially vague time expressions.Examples of the former are: nesse ano ("that year"), no mesmo dia ("the same day"), naquela semana ("that week"), na véspera desse dia ("the day before that day"), no dia seguinte ("the following day") and no semestre anterior ("the previous semester").Examples of the latter are então ("then"), nesse meio tempo ("in the meantime"), enquanto isso ("meanwhile") and na altura ("at the time").Expressions with predicative content constrain their antecedent to be a time expression representing a time interval of a given calendar type (day, week, year, etc.) In the first case, enquanto isso/meanwhile represents the "running time" of the eventuality described in the first sentence: "A Ana fez o jantar" ("Ana cooked dinner").In the second case, então/then refers to the "running time" of the situation "A Ana nasceu" ("Ana was born").According to the corpora, we also find differences between EP and BP in the use of referentially vague temporal expressions.

(i) locators with meio tempo (" meantime")
Although acceptable in both varieties, locators as neste meio tempo ("in the meantime"), nesse meio tempo ("in the meantime") and no meio tempo ("in the meantime"), as in the examples below, seem to be much more common in BP than in EP.In fact, they do not appear in the consulted EP corpora, being replaced in this variety by enquanto isso or entretanto.(ii) locators with entretanto ("meanwhile") In EP, entretanto ("meanwhile") is mainly used with a temporal value.In the first of the following examples, the anaphor refers back to the time interval corresponding to the "running time" of an eventuality.In the second case, it refers back to a time interval stretching from the speech time to the "running time" of an eventuality.In the third, entretanto refers back to a time interval stretching from the time of an eventuality to the speech time.( 41 In BP, entretanto seems to have lost its temporal value.The corpora show that this expression is mainly used to mark the denial of an expectation, akin to a concessive value, as in the following cases: (46) "O professor Selten expandiu e refinou a teoria de equilíbrio de Nash, para incluir conceitos de como se formam estratégias ao longo do tempo.Selten possui um livro em co-autoria com Harsanyi.Um nome, entretanto, foi a ausência notável da lista."(NILC, par Dinheiro-94a-eco-1) [BP] (iii) locators with esse tempo ("that time") The paragraphs below, extracted from a BP corpus, are not fully acceptable in contemporary EP7 .Leaving aside differences related to the temporal operators (that will be ignored here), the locators sound inappropriate in the given contexts.Notice that in both cases, the locator with esse tempo ("that time") is used to convey that two situations are simultaneous: (47) "Caiu desfalecida contra o esteio.Japi lambia-lhe a mão fria e pulava travesso para fazer sorrir a criança, soltando uns doces latidos de prazer.(.In EP, in both cases, por/a esse tempo should be replaced by, for instance, nessa altura, an expression that, according to the corpora, is much more customary in the European than in the Brazilian variety.In EP, locators with esse tempo, as nesse tempo, are also available but their use seems to be different from the one at stake in the above BP texts.[Notice that in all cases the anaphoric locators occur in sentences with the "pretérito imperfeito".]When we read sequence (a), we may conclude that it was raining when Paulo climbed the Pico da Vara, that this fact made the climb more difficult, that he got wet, and so on.As for sequence (b), what it expresses is the idea that 1999 or the 90 decade was not dry.This does not entail that it was raining when Paulo was climbing.
Notice, furthermore, that na altura and nessa altura can be used with the progressive, but not nesse tempo: What seems to be the case, then, is that, in EP, locators with esse tempo represent more extended time intervals than in BP.For instance, in the sequence below, very similar to the one given in (47), por esse tempo is most naturally interpreted as referring to a period of time in the past during which Ana's brother regularly surfed.
(51) a. Cheguei a casa depois do almoço.A Ana estudava.Por esse tempo o irmão fazia surf com os amigos." I arrived to_the home after of_the lunch.The Ana studied.By that time the brother did surf with the friends."I arrived home after lunch.Ana studied.At that time her brother surfed with his friends.
An interpretation according to which the same locator refers to the time during which Ana studied is not easy to obtain.It seems that these locators, in sentences with the "pretérito imperfeito", are not compatible with a DR of Parallelism (cf.

Conclusions
There are some interesting differences and similarities in respect of anaphoric locators in EP and BP.Regarding the locators with demonstratives, the relevant facts can be summarised as follows: (i) unlike what happens in EP, in BP both locators with este and locators with esse (although corpora indicate a clear preference for the former) can be used in deixis contexts, which seems to follow from the fact that in BP (but not in EP), in non--temporal domains, esse can be used in deixis contexts to convey proximity to the speaker; (ii) in both varieties, locators headed by an explicit em are ambivalent, that is, they can be used both in deixis and anaphora contexts, although in deixis contexts both varieties preferentially use implicit em locators; (iii) both in EP and BP, locators with an implicit em are not ambivalent, insofar as they can be used in deixis contexts only, which made me hypothesise that the choice between explicit and implicit em with (at least) these locators is not arbitrary, but related to deixis and anaphora dependencies.
Concerning other locators, namely those that include vague time expressions, I showed the existence of several lexical differences.One of the relevant expressions (entretanto) has mainly a temporal value in EP, but seems to have lost this value in BP.The remaining expressions have a temporal value in both varieties, but they are used in different contexts, though with more frequency in one variety than in the other.
i .O Paulo foi ao Brasil [nesse ano] i .Ana went to London in December 2001.Paulo went to Brazil that year.
i .O Paulo chegou [no ano seguinte Ø a esse ano ] i .Ana arrived in Lisbon in 1970.Paulo arrived the following year.(3) [A Ana nasceu] i em 1970.O Paulo tinha 10 anos [na altura] i .Ana was born in 1970.Paul was 10 years old at the time.(4) [A Ana mudou-se para Paris] i em 1999.Vivia em Lisboa [até então] i. Ana moved to Paris in 1999.She had been living in Lisbon until then.
5) a.A Ana esteve em Paris a semana passada.Ficou hospedada no hotel Hilton.Ana was in Paris last week.She stayed at the Hilton hotel.b.A Ana esteve em Paris a semana passada.Durante esse tempo ficou hospedada no hotel Hilton.Ana was in Paris last week.During that time she stayed at the Hilton hotel.c. #A Ana esteve em Paris a semana passada.Enquanto isso ficou hospedada no Hilton. 3Ana was in Paris last week.Meanwhile she stayed at the Hilton hotel.

(
50) a. O Paulo escalou o Pico da Vara em 1999.Estava a chover {na altura / nessa altura}."The Paulo climbed the Pico da Vara in 1999.Was at to_rain {in_the height / in_that height}."Paulo climbed Pico da Vara in 1999.It was raining {at the time / at that time}.b. *O Paulo escalou o Pico da Vara em 1999.Estava a chover nesse tempo."The Paulo climbed the Pico da Vara in 1999.Was at to_rain in_that time."Paulo climbed Pico da Vara in 1999.It was raining at that time.

Table IV -
Referential properties of locators with demonstratives in EP and BP

Table V
. Vague expressions do not impose the same type of constraint.They can pick up antecedents inferred from situation descriptions, as shown in the following examples: (37) Ontem à noite a Ana fez o jantar.Enquanto isso o Paulo pôs a mesa.Last night Ana cooked dinner.Meanwhile, Paul set the table.