Clíticos reflexos e inerentes na variedade de português de São Tomé e Príncipe

Abstract

This article focuses on verb constructions that select reflexive and inherent clitics in São Tomean Portuguese. Some studies have pointed out a tendency towards the omission of clitics from the reflexive paradigm in African varieties of Portuguese. The present study will deal with the variety of Portuguese spoken in São Tomé and Príncipe, that is undergoing a process of nativization. The first part offers a brief literature review on reflexive and inherent clitics in European Portuguese. The second part analyses oral data from a corpus, focusing on the variables education and age. The occurrences will be analyzed from a quantitative perspective, in order to verify the relevance of the omission strategy in spoken language in São Tomé. The data seems, in fact, to indicate that this variety of Portuguese presents a strong tendency towards the suppression of clitics. Inherent clitics suffer greater omission than reflexive clitics, which, nevertheless, are also suppressed. Furthermore, the variable education seems to have some weight in the choice of strategy by speakers, unlike the variable age. The article will also discuss if the omission strategy present in São Tomean Portuguese is a product of contact with Santome Creole or the result of a process of (historical) acquisition of Portuguese as L2.