THE VARIABLE REGENCY OF VERB IR OF MOVEMENT IN SALVADOR AND IN RIO DE JANEIRO

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the variable regency of verb ir of movement based on data from speakers of the NURC Project (Norma Urbana Culta) in the cities of Salvador and Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s and 1990s. The methodological axis that guides this research is Quantitative Sociolinguistics, also known as Variation Theory, as proposed by Labov (2008 [1972]). This study aims to describe the phenomenon of variation involving the prepositions a, para, em and até introduced by the verb ir of movement and to analyze the conditioning factors (linguistic and sociolinguistic) of the use of these prepositions. From a total of  739 occurrences, we observed that the variant a, in the samples, is the preferred from with 384 ocurrences (52,1%), followed by the prepositions para with 219 (29,6%), em with 91 (12,3%) and até with 45 (6,0%). For the quantitative analysis of the data, the dependent variable was structured in binary terms, considering the occurrences with a and para. With the exclusion of the prepositions em and até, the database now has 603 occurrences, 384 of which are of the preposition a, which corresponds to 63.7% of the total, and 219 of the preposition para, which corresponds to 36.3% of the total. In terms of fitting into the linguistic and social structure, GoldVarb X selected the following variables as statistically relevant: Permanence in place, Configuration of the locative name, Configuration of space, Person of speech and Age group. It can be said that the standard variant a prevails in the samples analyzed and that the present study will contribute to linguistic studies developed in the field of Variationist Sociolinguistics of Brazilian Portuguese, especially to discussions on the phenomenon of variation involving the prepositions a e para accompanied by verb ir of movement, raising new questions about this phenomenon.