First person plural (1PL) marking in Portuguese has been widely studied, especially in Brazilian Portuguese, yet rural and insular European varieties remain largely underexplored. This book addresses this gap by offering the first comprehensive sociolinguistic account of 1PL marking in rural Madeiran Portuguese varieties. It shows that, alongside established 1PL marking devices, Romance impersonal se functions as an innovative 1PL marker in the varieties under study.

Drawing on original fieldwork conducted on the main island of Madeira, the study combines semi-structured interviews, metalinguistic questionnaires, and a visual elicitation task to provide a differentiated empirical picture of 1PL marking based on both spontaneous usage and speaker judgements. The analysis examines variation among verbal marking ‑mos, the pronouns nós and a gente, and innovative (im)personal se, with particular attention to social and linguistic constraints shaping the distribution of se within this broader 1PL marking system.

By analysing the status of an originally impersonal marker within the paradigm of 1PL marking, the book contributes to the study of Portuguese and Romance linguistics, morphosyntax and sociolinguistic variation, and advances broader debates on “person”, “impersonality” and the permeability of the boundary between them.