Resumen de Contrasting Dative Expression in Varieties of Portuguese

Rita Gonçalves

• This paper aims to contrast the dative expression in different varieties of Portuguese. While European Portuguese uses ditransitive prepositional constructions (DPC) and Recipients [±ANIM] are introduced by the functional preposition a, non-European varieties of Portuguese exhibit a range of alternative strategies: (i) Brazilian Portuguese and Angolan Portuguese use a DPC introduced by para or em respectively; (ii) Mozambican Portuguese tends to use double object constructions (DOC) and dative passives; and (iii) Santomean Portuguese exhibits dative alternation between DOC and DPC which make use of either the preposition a or para. In this paper we discuss to what extent the strategies employed by these Portuguese varieties are due to the historical contact with Creole and Bantu languages, as well as to an ambiguous input from European Portuguese.