Alternative sentential negation strategies in the South Region of Brazil: an analysis of the influence of pragmatic factors based on data from the VARSUL Project

Brazilian Portuguese has three forms of sentential negation semantically equivalent: preverbal negation, double negation and sentence final negation. Although the conservative variant of preverbal negation is still prevalent, innovative variants have had a significant increase in some regions of Brazil, as it can be observed in the Southeast and Northeast regions. This increase of innovative clausal negation forms inserts Brazil in a more comprehensive debate about the Jespersen's Cycle. This article analyzes the different types of negative sentences collected in interviews carried out in the VARSUL Project. The preliminary assessment of occurrences carried out in the three capital cities of the South Region revealed conservative areas regarding negative sentential use. This has allowed us to consider that it is in an initial stage of a process which, in the long run, may result in linguistic change of the syntax of negative sentences. Aiming to identify the possible constraints over the innovative variant found in the South Region and to evaluate the plausibility of a current hypothesis for the emergence of double negative sentences, some data from Florianopolis were analyzed. Adapted from the source document