In standard European ****tuguese (EP), the 2nd person singular subject
pronoun in informal address is "tu" (often omitted as a null subject)
whereas the corresponding object pronoun is "te", e.g.
1) N=E3o fales assim comigo, meu filho. O que (eu) fiz para magoar-te ?
Alternatively, "voc=EA" may be used in ****tugal in formal (or
semi-formal) adress accompanied by a 3rd person verb form and a
corresponding 3rd person object pronoun (i.e. "o" or "a") . In Brazil,
however, "voc=EA" has overtaken "tu" as an almost universal form of 2nd
person address (replaced by the more formal "o senhor"/"a senhora" only
in deferential contexts) and has been also grammaticalized as an
alternative object pronoun. For example, the sentence
2) N=E3o fale assim comigo, meu filho. O que eu fiz para magoar voc=EA ?
is now considered "correct" by most Brazilian *school grammars*,
although it would probably sound strange to an EP speaker. In more
formal language though, an educated Brazilian would perhaps choose to
use "o" in lieu of "voc=EA" and say
3) N=E3o fale assim comigo, meu fiho. O que (eu) fiz para mago=E1-lo ?
An interesting phenomenon however is the combination, mostly in the
dialect of the city of Rio de Janeiro ("carioca") and, to a lesser
extent, among middle-class speakers in the city of S=E3o Paulo, of
"voc=EA" as a subject pronoun with "te" as an object pronoun. Although
condemned by prescriptive grammar, this odd combination is often heard
, e.g.
4) N=E3o fale assim comigo, meu filho. O que eu fiz para te magoar ?
5) N=E3o precisa ter ci=FAmes de mim, amor. Voc=EA sabe que eu te amo.
I wonder though how frequent the "voc=EA"/"te" combination really is
outside Rio/S=E3o Paulo. I would imagine that, due to the influence of
TV soap operas ("telenovelas"), most of which feature "carioca" speech,
the use of "te" should be growing in Brazil. Nevertheless, in the
S=E3o Paulo countryside ("caipira" dialect area) where I now happen to
live, the pronoun "te" seems to be inexistent. One would say for
example "Eu amo voc=EA" instead of "Eu te amo" . I guess the same is
true in the state of Minas Gerais and most of central Brazil. What
about in the Northeast ?
Finally, it is interesting to note that unusual pronoun combinations
also occur in other languages/dialects besides Brazilian ****tuguese
(BP). For example, colloquial European ****tuguese has the odd "voc=EAs
(subj.)/vosso (poss.)" and occasionally, I guess, the "voc=EAs
(subj.)/vos (obj.)" combinations. Rioplatense (Argentinean) Spanish
features in turn the combination of the archaic (2nd person sing.)
subject pronoun "vos" and its corresponding nonstandard verb forms
(e.g. "perd=E9s" for "pierdes" or "am=E1s" for "amas") with the standard
Spanish (2nd person sing.) object pronoun "te". On the other hand,
whereas colloquial spoken BP frequently uses 3rd person subject
pronouns as objects (e.g. "Vi ele na praia ontem" vs standard written
BP "Eu o vi/Vi-o na praia ontem") , colloquial American English on the
contrary seems to do the opposite (albeit in a much smaller scale),
i=2Ee. American speakers may occasionally use object pronouns as
subjects, e.g. "Me and my girl went to the movies yesterday." (vs
standard English "My girl and I went to the movies yesterday.")
Colloquial English also features the frequent use of object pronouns as
predicates (e.g. "That's me" instead of the standard "That's I").
Marcelo Bruno
PS: My favorite example perhaps is Afrikaans (formerly known as South
African Dutch) where "ons", which is normally an object pronoun in
European Dutch (like "us" in English or "uns" in German), has been also
grammaticalized as a subject pronoun replacing Dutch "wij/we", e.g.
"Ons is boere", literally "Us is farmers" (cf English "We are
farmers", German "Wir sind Bauern" and Dutch "Wij zijn boeren"). Note
though that Afrikaans still retains some vestiges of case distinctions
in pronouns, e.g. "ek(subj)/my(obj)",
"hy(subj)/hom(obj)/sy(poss/reflex)", or "sy(subj)/haar(obj)".
|
