A INDETERMINAÇÃO DO SUJEITO NO PORTUGUÊS ANGOLANO: UMA COMPARAÇÃO COM O PORTUGUÊS DO BRASIL Eliana Sandra Pitombo Teixeira Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana liapitombo@gmail.com Norma Lúcia Fernandes Almeida Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana norma.uefs@gmail.com Abstract: This article discusses strategies regarding the use of indeterminate subject in the Portuguese language spoken in Angola. We compare the Angolan Portuguese spoken today with the language used by Brazilians in the second half of the nineteenth century. Our discussion is based on the assumption that Brazilian sociopolitical conditions in that period were very similar to those of modern-day Angola. Political independence in Brazil began just a few decades before the period referred to, and the same is true of Angola today. In both varieties, for each period, we observe a great similarity between the variety and European Portuguese, although this is not true in the case of the vernacular norm. The empirical basis for this study comes from a sociolinguistic analysis of this aspect of the grammar, based on a corpus comprised of an Angolan native speaker of Portuguese and speakers of Portuguese as a second language. Cavalcante’s diachronic study (1999) has furnished the data for Brazilian Portuguese. Despite being an analysis of written language, we have used these data as an attempt to catch a glimpse of 19 th century Brazilian grammar. Keywords: Brazilian Portuguese, Angolan Portuguese, language contact, indeterminate subject. PAPIA 21(1), p. 99-111, 2011. ISSN 0103-9415