Processos de flexão na formação de sinais: um estudo das gírias utilizadas pela comunidade surda de São Luís – MA

Abstract

This study aimed to understand the morphological sign formation processes of the slang used by the deaf com-munity of São Luís; and it tries to answer the following question: How is possible to identify inflections in the morphology of slang signs used by deaf community in São Luis? This research shows a part of the research made by the first author When she concluded the graduation in Letras Libras, with the supervision of the two other authors in this article. It is important because it can help the research about Libras morphology, and eluci-date questions about the formation of signs. As a theoretical framework for the study of morphology, we used Quadros and Karnopp (2004), Aronoff, Meir and Sandler (2005), Faria-Nascimento (2009; 2013), Quadros (2019) and Quadros et al. (2023) and other authors. About slang, we used Preti (1984; 2000) and Silva (2008). We turn to Silva (2015) and Cruz (2020) to talk about slang in Libras. The research is a qualitative and quanti-tative descriptive study of the signs present in the slang category on the Maranhão em Sinais website. In the forst research, that is base for this article, we identify various morphological process in formation of slang signs, but her we focus in inflections: 06 (six) slang signs with morphological processes of concordance inflection, 20 (twenty) signs with aspectual inflection. The concordance inflections can be identified by the change on the movement direction of the sign, that makes possible to know who makes or receive the action. The aspectual inflection can be identified using non-manual expressions.