Linguística: Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto

Editorial space

2024-02-10T00:37:34+00:00

Quintino Lopes. Uma Periferia Global. Armando de Lacerda e o Laboratório de Fonética Experimental de Coimbra (1936-1979)

2023-10-08T23:44:00+00:00

Full Issue

2024-02-10T00:28:51+00:00

The use of gender-neuter marking in Brazilian Portuguese tweets: a sociolinguist approach

2023-05-19T08:21:58+00:00

This research investigates gender-neuter marking in Brazilian Portuguese, a recent linguistic variation that has divided many opinions in Brazilian social and political circles until now. The Theory of Variation (LABOV, 2008 [1972]; WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 2006 [1968]), with a focus on Communities of Practice (ECKERT; MCCONNELL-GINET, 1992a, 1992b), supports the description and analysis conducted. To observe the variant, we opted for the social network Twitter, from which we collected 3,446 tweets produced by three subjects during the second half of 2020 who explicitly expressed a preference for the use of the neuter pronouns “Elu,” “Ilu,” “El” or “Ile.” As a selection criterion, we considered tweets containing adjectives, nouns, and pronouns whose referent was a human, and morphological markers carrying gender distinction. The predictor variables stipulated were morphosyntactic class, lexical item, the tweet topic, participant, and the reference performed by gender marks (generic or specific). The sample was submitted through the RStudio program, version 4.1.2, through which the proposed statistical treatment was carried out. The results reveal a disadvantage regarding gender-neuter marking for all participants, not showing optimistic estimates about any specific word. They also pointed out the adjective class, the affective relationship and identity topics, and the generic reference performed by gender marking as conditioners of gender-neuter employment.

Parataxis, hypotaxis, and subordination in Brazilian Sign Language: a brief introduction

2023-07-05T09:53:19+00:00

Clause articulation is a grammatical strategy found in all-natural languages. This phenomenon gives rise to complex constructions that manifest in a continuous gradient (parataxis – hypotaxis – embedding) from integrating syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic levels of the language in use. The present study is guided by a functionalist perspective of language and aims to describe some articulation processes of sentences in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). Regarding the Libras data, we noticed that juxtaposition, conjunctions, facial expressions, prolonged head nod, head nod linked to ALREADY mouthing, trunk displacement, and the maintenance of the non-dominant hand (buoy) could play a role. An essential role in the articulation of clauses or, at least, in the cohesion of the sentence.

Soap and water or water and soap? The difference a (still) human translator can make…

2023-06-22T09:43:43+00:00

The world of professional translation is inextricably linked to the conquests of artificial intelligence (AI), and human translators need to use machine translation tools and translation memories to increase their productivity. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of the human translator in the translation process and, consequently, to adapt the training of young translators to the circumstances in which they will have to work in the future. Based on the work of final-year students of FLUP's Master's in Translation and Language Services, we carried out an analysis of several cases that revealed the weaknesses of machine translation systems, in order to illustrate how human intervention can contribute to a more efficient translation process and a higher quality of the final product and can also help translators focus their efforts on areas where human intervention is most valuable. If the translator is aware of the limitations of AI systems in advance and if he/she knows what are the most appropriate linguistic resources applied in the different text genres of specialised communication in the target culture and language, during the revision and post-editing process he/she may focus his efforts on areas where human intervention is most valuable: in producing texts that do not look like a translation and reveal the characteristic features of original, specialised discourse in the target culture and language. By paying special attention to pronominal anaphora, collocations, idiomatic expressions, or macro- and micro-textual conventions translators can optimize the revision process, increase productivity, and achieve improved translations in less time.

Complement clauses with "para" in Mozambican Portuguese

2023-05-02T20:08:00+00:00

This paper analyses verb complements, finite and infinitival, introduced by para 'for' in Mozambican Portuguese (MP). In the analysed data, on the one hand, there is a tendency already studied and referred to in the literature (Issak 1998, P. Gonçalves 2002, 2010, a.o.), which consists of introducing finite complements to directive verbs by the preposition para and, on the other hand, the tendency not yet studied, which consists of introducing corresponding infinitival complements by the same preposition. These results reveal a tendency to standardize the c-selection properties of finite and infinitival complements of directive verbs. Furthermore, they allow to infer that para is a true preposition, as an alternative to previous analyses which have shown that para is a complementizer (Duarte 2003, Barbosa & Raposo 2013, A. Gonçalves et al. 2018) or it is as part of the conjunctional phrase para que 'for that' (see Barbosa 2013, for European Portuguese (EP)), and also as part of the complex complementizer para-que (see P. Gonçalves 2002, 2005, 2010, for MP). In MP, but not in EP, para complements selected by directive verbs can be taken up anaphorically by demonstratives like isso 'that' preceded by this preposition. Furthermore, the preposition para can also occur when directive verbs are constructed with nominal arguments. These facts favour the assumption that, in PM, the complements to directive verbs, finite and infinitival, introduced by para, are oblique complements and the preposition para is external to the complement clause/CP.

Concatenation of affixes in Bantu: some readings from Lexical Phonology

2023-07-05T10:46:24+00:00

Bantu languages from Mozambique exhibit a grammatical behavior distinct from Portuguese, from which they coexist. Noun morphology is one of the domains that offers notable differences in functioning between these languages. The object of this work is the affixes in Bantu, i.e., noun prefixes, suffixes and locative circumfixes of Ciyaawo (P21), Xichangana (S53) and Emakhuwa (P31) languages, (Ciyaawo and Emakhuwa) spoken in the North and (Xichangana) in the South of the country. Based on the theoretical support of standard Lexical Phonology (Kiparsky 1982 and Mohanan 1982) and the Booij & Rubach (1987) model, we seek to understand the behavior of morphemes that are linked to nominal themes and, with that, determine the occurrence of morphophonological processes and constraints arising from the interweaving between morphology and phonology. The data analyzed were obtained from a personal database built through instruments for collecting basic vocabulary from the Núcleo de Estudos de Línguas Moçambicanas (NELIMO), applied to higher education students, between 2013 and 2017 on one hand, and from two secondary sources (Langa 2012 and Ngunga 2014), on the other hand. The research results seem to confirm the existence of two components of the lexicon, namely, a. the cyclic – where morphological rules act, and b. the post-cyclic – where phonological rules operate, as proposed by Booij & Rubach (1987).