Sobre as origens da distinção entre negação de proposição e negação de evento no Português Brasileiro

Abstract

Brazilian Portuguese (BP) has three distinct structures to express sentential negation: Neg1 - [Neg VP] for negation over event; Neg2 - [Neg VP Neg] for negation over the proposition, and Neg3 - [VP Neg] for metalinguistic negation. The structural distinction between the different types of semantic negation (Neg1 and Neg2) is rare in natural languages and is not present in other varieties of Portuguese. This makes us wonder about the origin of this distinction in BP. While some studies support a contact hypothesis, others claim that the innovative structure Neg2 already appears in 16^th century texts, and therefore predates language contact in the colonial period. One hypothesis about the origin of the distinction posits a reinterpretation of a structure already present in the language. According to Teixeira de Sousa (2012b), Neg1 and Neg2 may have been in competition in the grammar, resulting in a functional specialization of the structures. I shall argue, however, that the earliest evidence for Neg2, from nineteenth century dramas, shows that Neg2 has never been used in the same contexts or with the same function as Neg1, hence the structure cannot have arisen owing to competition between Neg1 and Neg2.