By Walter Brandimarte

NEW YORK, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Emerging sovereign debt prices dipped into negative territory for the year-to-date on Friday as U.S. recession fears weighed on the market and Venezuelan bonds were knocked down by the freezing of assets belonging to its PDVSA oil company.

Overall emerging debt returns fell 0.78 percent and are 0.2 percent negative for 2008 after rising as much as 0.8 percent by mid-January, according to the benchmark JP Morgan EMBI+ index 11EMJ.

Yield spreads over U.S. Treasury notes, an important measure of risk aversion, widened 12 basis points to 283 basis points on the EMBI+, although analysts said investors are not reducing their exposure to emerging debt markets.

"I don't believe we are selling off because of endogenous reasons in emerging markets, I think it is more the effect of what has been going on on the broader credit markets and the broader equity markets," said Emil Babayev, a fund manager with JP Morgan Asset Management in New York.

"We have not seen any outflows, in fact, we have seen inflows, mostly into local markets," he added.

Dedicated emerging markets bond funds received net inflows of $35 million in the week ending Feb. 6, according to EPFR data.

Since Tuesday, however, the price of less-volatile bonds, like those issued by Brazil, also started to fall sharply. Before then, the largest losses had been concentrated in credits of more fragile economies like Argentina and South Africa.

Brazil's global bond due 2040 <BRAGLB40=RR> was trading half a point lower, bid at 132.625. If it finishes at this price, it will be its lowest closing level since Sept. 14, 2007.