O uso do imperfeito do indicativo pelo futuro do pretérito : uma contribuição ao ensino de português do Brasil para estrangeiros

Abstract

This study examines the use of the imperfect tense in place of the conditional tense in Brazilian Portuguese, bearing in mind its usefulness in the teaching of the Portuguese language to foreigners. An analysis of a collection of 46 interviews from the magazine Caros Amigos was conducted, having as a theoretical base the contributions from Textual Linguistics and the Politeness Theory as well as resorting to Travaglia s (1999) proposal on the categorization of the use of the Conditional tense. A table that summarizes the uses of the conditional tense and that indicates when a substitution by the imperfect tense is suitable was elaborated. The findings of this study and the generated table could serve as a guide to professionals involved in teaching Portuguese to foreigners.