“‘For a ‘Parametric’ Romance Sociolinguistics” – revisiting Tarallo 1987 and turning the page

Abstract

This article revisits Tarallo´s (1987) proposal observing variationist results, using the Theory of Language Variation and Change (WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 1968) in the light of the emerging Principles and Parameters Theory (CHOMSKY, 1981). His proposal, then considered heretical, because generative theory was not concerned about language change then (and it should not have been, because its interest then was then to find invariable principles of Universal Grammar), ended up as an important tool to study syntactic change in Brazilian Portuguese. We would soon realize that the two models were not in competition; on the contrary, they were complementary: the Theory of Language Variation and Change had to be associated with a linguistic theory. As an example of such association, proposed by Tarallo and continued with his work with Mary Kato and their students, we present the advantages of this combination in a contemporary analysis of Brazilian and European Portuguese, recognized by eminent generativists as an important tool to pursue the syntactic change in the long term.