Historical and geolinguistic traces of the lexical unit 'peteca' in indigenous and non-indigenous territories of Pernambuco

Abstract

This study investigates the distribution, meanings, and historical motivations associated with the lexical unit "peteca" in Pernambuco, based on data from the state's linguistic atlases and the emerging corpus of the Linguistic Atlas of Indigenous Areas of Agreste and Sertão. Grounded in the contributions of Cardoso (2010) and Thun and Elizaincín (2000) on Geolinguistics and Dialectology, it seeks to understand the diatopic variation of the lexeme, while Ethnolinguistics, based on Duranti's (1997) assumptions, enables the identification of cultural and historical aspects that support the analysis in indigenous and non-indigenous territories. In this sense, the main objective is to examine the marks of interethnic contact and lexical processes. To this end, the methodology employs a geolinguistic and ethnolinguistic approach, combining the cartographic analysis of the term's dispersion with the study of the sociocultural context of the investigated survey points. As analytical perspectives, it is expected to identify diachronic traces in the distribution of the lexical item, highlight indigenous substrates in its semantic constitution, and understand the effects of territoriality on its maintenance and lexical innovation. The results will contribute to studies on linguistic diversity, demonstrating how linguistic atlases, by recording lexical phenomena in different geographical spaces, play a relevant role in documenting and valuing Brazilian linguistic and cultural heritage.