Usage rates and variable rules: what changes in migrants’ speech
This paper analyzes the acquisition of abstract variable rules (Guy, 1980) in a dialect contact situation in Brazilian Portuguese, focusing on the use of definite articles before possessive pronouns (minha mãe vs. a minha mãe ‘(the) my mother’). Definite articles differ between Northeastern and Southeastern varieties of Brazilian Portuguese in usage rates and favoring linguistic contexts (Callou; Silva, 1997). The analysis of a speech sample of 11 migrants, contrasted with 24 native speakers from both place of origin and destination, shows that the migrants have not only raised their rates of definite articles and but also use them in the same contexts as the host community, entailing that adult speakers in a dialect contact situation may learn new abstract grammatical rules.
