The Gerund in Angolan, Mozambican, and Santomean Portuguese: Influence of European Portuguese and Patterns of Variation

Portuguese is undergoing an accelerated process of nativization in three African varieties (AVPs): Angola (AP), Mozambique (MP), and São Tomé and Príncipe (STP). Studies have accompanied this evolution of these AVPs that focus on language acquisition, variation, and linguistic change, particularly emphasizing syntactic aspects. These studies aim to highlight the distinctions between these varieties and the standard European Portuguese (EP) and assess the influence of the contact between AVPs and local creoles and Bantu languages. Recent studies (e.g. Hagemeijer et al., 2022a) suggest that AVPs exhibit characteristics that are only partially distinct from EP, contrasting with earlier research based on older data (e.g. Chavagne, 2005). Additionally, each variety of AVPs appears to possess specific peculiarities, indicating that AVPs should not be regarded as homogeneous (Gonçalves, 2013).

This study seeks to address some gaps found in previous research on APVs while also contributing to a broader theoretical discussion on converbs (cf. Haspelmath, 1995). We aim to characterize the grammatical constructions in which gerundive forms are utilized in AVPs. The corpus we analyzed was collected from the PALMA corpora (http://gamma.clul.ul.pt/CQPweb/; Hagemeijer et al., 2022b) and includes AP, MP, and STP data. Our analysis aimed to: (i) identify the contexts in which gerundive forms occur (Lobo, 2013); (ii) pinpoint critical areas of the AVPs where divergence exists when compared to standard EP; and (iii) characterize these critical areas from both a syntactic and semantic perspective.

A preliminary analysis was conducted on 120 examples from each variety (refer to Table 1 for the number of informants and their L1). This analysis reveals that gerundive forms are utilized in constructions that are also found in EP. Most commonly, these include adjunct clauses, verbal complexes, gerunds of enunciation, and predicative gerunds (cf. Table 2 and (1)-(4)). In our sample, we observed a correlation between the number of L1 speakers and the use of gerunds in ways similar to EP. For instance, the variety with the fewest L1 speakers, MP (12 speakers), shows the least number of constructions at 45.8%. In contrast, STP, which has the highest number of L1 speakers at 27, exhibits the most significant proportion of constructions at 77.5%, while AP falls in between. These findings support the idea that, as the nativization of AVPs progresses, these varieties are becoming more aligned with EP.  Some instances of divergence from EP (and Brazilian Portuguese) have been identified, with 26 cases in AP, 33 in MP, and 10 in STP. Notably, we found several instances where infinitive forms were replaced by gerund forms, particularly in complementation contexts (see (5)) or within verbal complexes (see (6)). There were also occasional cases of participle replacement (see (7)). This variation exists not only between different language varieties but also among individual speakers within the same variety (microvariation), highlighting the importance of conducting a case-by-case analysis of the corpus data.

Examples

(1) foi-se encontrando várias coisas que nunca se viu no mundo (AP) (verbal complex)

‘We were finding many things that had never been seen in the world’

(2) mesmo pegando reembolso, acho que há taxa de cancelamento (STP) (adjunct clause)

‘Even if you get a refund, I think there is a cancellation fee’

(3) falando do alambamento como um valor cultural em Luanda,… (AP) enunciation gerund)

'talking about alambamento as a cultural value in Luanda’

(4) pessoa jogando bisca (STP) (predicative gerund)

‘people playing cards’

(5) um curso que eu queria tirando era medicina (AP) (cf. “eu queria tirar”)

‘a course I wanted to take was medicine’

(6) vou falando um bocadinho do coiso (MP) (cf. “vou falar”)

‘I'll talk a little about the thing’

(7) também tem dando um grande contributo para o desenvolvimento (AP) (cf. “tem dado”)

‘it has also made a great contribution to the development’