Repositório RCAAP

This paper presents findings of an exploratory study into the correlation between literal and metaphorical uses of the verb ‘construir’ (build) and the pattern [verb + (determiner) + noun + adjective], in which the adjective gives different directions. Based on the tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Construction Grammar, occurrences of the target item in the Brazilian Corpus were annotated for metaphoricity and resultativeness of the adjective in use. It is argued that the correlation patterns can be analysed in terms of causative and resultative constructions or resultatives only. Cases where the literal use of ‘construir’ (build) is followed by a resultative adjective were not found, and this match was judged impossible in Brazilian Portuguese. A case is made for further complementary studies into the interplay between constructions and metaphors.

In this paper, with the theoretical support of Cognitive Linguistics, more specifically, Cognitive Grammar, we analyze occurrences, in Brazilian Portuguese, of idiomatic constructions with the verb pagar (to pay) collected on different internet sites with the help of the Google search tool. As a result, (i) we demonstrate that such idiomatic constructions result from the schematic construction NP TRANSFER NP TO NP which, in turn, comes from an even more schematic construction NP V NP SPREP; (ii) we explain the peculiarities in the use of these constructions as well as the relationships they maintain among themselves with regard to the chain of meanings and contexts related to the emergence of these constructions; (iii) we formulated the constructional network of the verb pagar (to pay) containing referred   constructions.

In this work, we aim to define the properties of form and meaning of the construction [por X tempo], a Brazilian Portuguese subschema in which X is a slot filled by the indefinite pronouns tanto, muito, pouco and algum. Our particular interest in this object has to do with its immanent aspectual value. Even in cases where the verb is telic and perfective, the use of [por X tempo] adds a cursive or iterative trajectory, as we can see, for example, when we compare the sentences a) “Ele leu o livro” (He read the book) and “Ele leu o livro por muito tempo” (He read the book for a long time); b) “Eu sonhei com isso” (I dreamt about it) and “Eu sonhei com isso por muito tempo” (I dreamt about it for a long time). For our research, we selected 400 tokens from Corpus Now (www.corpusdoportugues.org/now/) and analyzed them in the light of the theoretical assumptions of Cognitive-Functional Linguistics (OLIVEIRA; ROSÁRIO, 2016; CUNHA; BISPO; SILVA, 2013; TRAUGOTT; TROUSDALE, 2013; among others). The results show us that cursivity/iterativity should be interpreted as gradient categories, in which the constructions can assume a more or less durable/iterative aspectual value, depending mainly on the following factors: a) the semantic value of the indefinite pronouns that occupy the slot X; b) the actional classes of verbs (that involve the notions of teliticity, durativity and staticity); the immediate linguistic context where the event occurs.

The singular 2nd person imperative in Brazilian Portuguese may be seen as a construction with specific properties in Goldberg (1995, 2006) as well as Traugott and Trousdale (2013) terms.  This construction expresses itself through three constructional instances: the true imperative (indicative + tu), the suppletive imperative (subjunctive + você) and the Brazilian imperative (indicative + você), according to Scherre (2007), Paredes Silva et al. (2000) and Carvalho (2020). In this paper, in order to establish relations between Cognitive Linguistics and Sociolinguistics, the interactions between these constructions are discussed based on the Conceptual Blending Theory by Fauconnier and Turner (2012), as well as imperative forms productivity in language in light of Bybee's Usage-based Theory (2013). In this sense, it is possible to understand that the Brazilian imperative originated from a merging process between the true imperative and the suppletive imperative and spread throughout the national territory over time as a typical construction of Brazilian Portuguese.

The article contributes to the identification and linguistic analysis of the Hispanic toponymic units of Uruguay, and presents the first attempt to classify them. Due to historical factors and geographical location, the Uruguayan toponymic corpus over the centuries have been formed of the European (mainly Hispanic) and autochthonous (mostly Guarani) layers. The author groups geographical names of Spanish origin, giving multiple examples, explaining their etymology and identifying metonymic chains. Along with the description of Hispanic commemorative toponyms, religious allusions, zoo- and phytotoponyms, emotionally colored toponyms and geographical names containing numerals, the author assigns a separate place to folk etymology, shift and repeated names.

No summary/description provided

In this work, we discuss the activation of presupposition and conceptual blending, based on the Theory of Mental Spaces (FAUCONNIER, 1994, 1997; FAUCONNIER; TURNER, 2002), in the structure we call Concessive-Comparative Construction, outlined as “ATÉ QUE PARA X, Y” and instantiated in instances like “Até que pra um avô você ainda está em forma, hein”. Following the socio-cognitive contribution from Construction Grammar (GOLDBERG, 1995, 2006; FILLMORE, LEE-GOLDMAN & RHOMIEUX, 2012), based on a theoretical-methodological approach based on use, with a database formed by authentic occurrences taken from the internet, we aim to legitimize the Concessive-Comparative Construction as an evaluative resource of the language that can promote veiled criticism. After empirical analysis of the data, we point out that this construction seems to promote a process of conceptual blending, which relates scales between mental spaces and promotes the emergence of an ad hoc category, in which the assessment made is relative to a group of expectations.

Drawing on the results of a psycholinguistic experiment, Muniz (2019) argues that the Brazilian Portuguese verbs “cortar” (‘cut’), “quebrar” (‘break’) e “rasgar” (‘tear’) define prototype-based semantic categories. In this paper, we investigate whether these results can be ultimately linked to the usage-based construction grammar claim that constructional knowledge displays redundant representation. In order to test this hypothesis, an induced-production experiment was carried out whereby participants were asked to provide oral descriptions to scenes displaying events of separation. The results provided evidence in favor of our construction-based hypothesis, thus suggesting a promissing way of bringing together radial categorization studies and research in the field of construction grammar research.

The main objective of this paper is to present and apply the proposal for the analysis of nanosteps (ROSA, 2019), that is, gradual changes, in form or content, that occurred in a same context of construction change. To this end, the object of study selected is the refraining argumentative discourse marker micro-construction calma aí. Inserted in the scope of Cognitive-Functional Linguistics or Usage-Based Functional Linguistics, such treatment has as its fundamental theoretical bases the constructionalist approach (TRAUGOTT; TROUSDALE, 2013) and the principles of linguistic change contexts (DIEWALD, 2002, 2006; DIEWALD; SMIRNOVA, 2012). As this is part of a broader panchronic research, this work contains data collected in the Diário do Congresso Nacional, with publications from the 20th and 21st centuries. It appears that the analysis through the examination of nano-steps provides more accurate verification of processes, such as metonymization and metaphorization, which result in constructional change. In addition, it is possible to identify more precisely the characteristics of the form (syntactic, morphological and phonological) and the content (semantic, pragmatic and discursive) of the construction at each stage of change.

This paper analyzes the construction [because X] as based on the Construction Grammar framework (cf. FILLMORE et al., 1988; GOLDBERG, 1995, 2006; BYBEE, 2016), in association corpus linguistics (McENERY; HARDIE, 2013; SINCLAIR, 2005) as methodology. Data was collected by means of a special computational code designed for use in the EnTenTen corpus (JAKUBÍČEK et al., 2013), to search for lexical-grammatical patterns attested in because. Our analysis shows that the construction [because X] heavily favors nouns, adjectives, and interjections in the [X] position, often behaving similarly to the prepositional because. Following Fillmore et al. (1988), [because X] can be understood as codable, formal, extra-grammatical. We suggest that [because X] is mainly used in more informal contexts, favoring brevity.

In this work, we aim to describe and analyze the different modalizations (epistemic, deontic, volitive and facultative) and their distinctive uses (overmodalization, remodalization and commodalization) as argumentative strategies in Pope Francis' self-help books. For this, we resort to the typology of the modalities of Hengeveld (2004) and the works related to the distinctive uses of modalization, in this case, Corbari (2016), Valentim (2017) and Gasparini-Bastos and Brunelli (2019). After analyzing the books, we concluded that the different modalities serve to confirm pragmatic information already shared between the religious leader and the faithful (epistemic), to establish subjective evaluations of rules and norms of conduct (deontic), to express capacities and abilities with the power of the divine (facultative) and manifest what is desirable on the part of the divinity (volitive). In relation to distinctive uses, commodalization is used to assert or mitigate the modal contents engendered in the discourse, while overmodalization seeks to superimpose the subjectivity of one modal content over the other. On the other hand, the remodalization intends to assert the modal values ​​expressed, showing the need to materialize the event described by the predicates that are under the influence of the modalizer.

Belli et al. (2018) explain that the myth of the Tower of Babel, described in the Holy Bible, alludes to the intercultural relations in today’s world, because the Tower was located in a major economic and cultural center of the ancient world. Telecollaboration, defined as the use of online technologies in the area of language teaching and learning between students who are geographically distant (O’DOWD, 2013a), plays an important role in promoting intercultural interactions in the Internationalization at Home (O’DOWD, 2019) context. The latter stands for a more inclusive internationalization, achieved by domestic activities, and not only by international academic mobility (CROWTHER et al., 2000). For Luna (2018b), the process of Internationalization of the Curriculum occurs in the light of the intercultural approach (KRAMSCH, 2014), whereas Gil (2016) argues that such approach should be conceptualized based on the interaction between language and culture. This study aims at discussing how the interaction between language and culture related to the intercultural approach can lead students “to go down the Tower of Babel” through telecollaborative activities in the context of Internationalization at Home. With respect to the results, two telecollaborative domestic actions, under the author’s coordination, appear to indicate that there have been opportunities towards the process of “going down the tower”, since many concerns related to the current world, e.g. cultural differences, stereotypes and the environment, where students can to take both an insider and an outsider’s perspective (KRAMSCH, 2011), are at the heart of the discussions.

This paper follows a pilot study and compares data obtained from Portuguese and Brazilian native speakers in the task of resolving ambiguous anaphora in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Their responses were also compared to those from native speakers of the mentioned foreign languages. The analysis was based on an online survey answered by 52 college students in Brazil and Portugal. The instrument was used to analyse intrasentential anaphora resolution in the three languages, measuring as variables clauses order, anaphor salience, and verb choice. In Portuguese and Spanish, students seemed to follow the Position of Antecedent Strategy (CARMINATI, 2002) in sentences considered semantically “neutral”, but not in the “biased” ones. In English, native speakers tended to interpret the pronoun in subject position of subordinate clause as corresponding to the subject of the main clause. English learners, however, have been generally uncertain about the best alternative. This research contributes to the art state not only by making explicit the testing sentences set development and by conducting a comparative study in three languages, but also by trying to demonstrate with quantitative data that the verb choice affects strategy used to resolve ambiguity.

This study addresses the rise of Portuguese in São Tomé and Príncipe. Based on historical processes of social interaction in the colonial and post-colonial periods, there was a diffusion of Portuguese to the detriment of local languages even though the input in Portuguese was initially limited. As a result of assimilatory pressures, reinforced throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the non-Portuguese population favored the use and intergenerational transmission of Portuguese, a behavior which local elites validated. Portuguese consolidated after 1975 as the language transmitted by older generations. It has become the mother tongue of the majority of the population of São Tomé and Príncipe, thus enabling the emergence of singular varieties of Portuguese marked by contacts with other local languages. article.

This study is aimed at examining the performance of college students at an educational institution in the state of Rio Grande do Sul concerning issues of reading at basic level in Spanish, and considering the styles of questions proposed and the minimal requirements expected for students to meet while being tested and answering each question. For this purpose, we first discuss theoretical frameworks on issues of reading and its different levels according to Kleiman (2000, 2007) and Platão & Fiorin (2002). Next, we discuss issues related to textual cohesion, particularly on cohesion through reference and through the use of connectors, based on theoretical frameworks by Koch (2003, 2006) and Halliday & Hasan (1976). Finally, we analyze the evaluation, which consisted of two texts written in Spanish and text-comprehension questions written in the students’ mother tongue. Results show that learners had difficulties, mostly, to assimilate their linguistic knowledge, which may compromise their performance in evaluation instruments such as the competence test chosen for the analysis.

The EPPLE (Proficiency Exam for Foreign Language Teachers) is an assessment instrument in constant improvement (CONSOLO and TEIXEIRA DA SILVA, 2014; COLOMBO, 2019) which aims at assessing the proficiency of the FL teacher in the Brazilian context. Currently, the EPPLE has only a holistic scale to assess the oral performance of candidates, developed intuitively. Thus, it is necessary to build an analytical and empirically based proficiency scale to produce an argument for the validity of the assessment criteria that classify the oral performances in the exam. The vocabulary accuracy, among other constructs of the linguistic competence, is extremely important for the FL language teacher oral proficiency, since the teacher teaches LE using the target language in communicative contexts (FREEMAN et al., 2015). The present study presents results of the application of EBBs (Empirically derived, Binary choice, Boundary definition scales), an empirical methodology for the development of assessment criteria and rating scales developed by Upshur and Turner (1999), for the construction of a framework of empirically verifiable criteria to assess the vocabulary accuracy used by EPPLE candidates. From data analysis, it was possible to develop an analytical proficiency scale to assess vocabulary accuracy that integrates the coherence of the vocabulary, the accurate use of metalanguage and the knowledge of keywords related to linguistic topics.

Understanding, as Possenti (2001, 2013), that school writings can present authorship marks and, as Orlandi (2012), that it is the role of school to promote the passage from subject-enunciator to subject-author, the aim of this paper is to present a work proposal, which promotes the development of the authorship marks, about the theme bullying to the ENEM essay genre. However, as usually school presents an authoritarian pedagogic discourse, that prevents this passage, our proposal is based on a polemical pedagogic discourse which promotes a discursive reversibility and a dispute over the discursive object (ORLANDI, 1987b). Starting from Semantics of Enunciation, developed by Dias (2018) and by Guimarães (2002), we define authorship as an enunciative function that delimits a point of view (political position that reorganizes the “real”), that organises the historical references (the workings of the social-historical discursive memory) and that shapes them to the situation of speech (in this specific case, the ENEM essay). The analysis of the essay of a 1st year high school student demonstrates the benefits of the approach adopted here.

This study reports evidences that gradual differences in the frequency of the third formant in the pronunciation of coda /r/ can provoke equally gradual differences in how speakers are socially evaluated in São Bernardo do Campo, a city in Greater São Paulo. A sociolinguistic perception experiment designed according to the matched-guise technique (LAMBERT et al., 1960) was conducted with 58 residents of the city, which were asked to listen to a recording of the speech of a person reading a sentence, and then to fill out a questionnaire about the speaker. The auditory stimuli differed only in the tokens of coda /r/, each of them presenting only one of three levels of decrease in the third formant. The results indicate correlation between the decrease and the way in which the speakers were evaluated. The decrease in the frequency of the third formant correlated with the increase in the rate of the responses that evaluated the speakers as having more accent and as being resident of São Bernardo do Campo. This result suggests that social meanings of linguistic forms can vary gradually when indexed by gradual phonetic variables.

During the period of the 2018’s presidential election in Brazil a movement of polarization was observed, especially during the second round, which concentrated in the opposition between the groups that supported the candidates Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) and Fernando Haddad (PT). In this way this article aims to approach in which ways the polarized groups built representations around the opposite group and established a relationship with the (O)other in the discursive space of Twitter, since it was a space of wide spreading and (re)production of the polarized discourses. Is presented as corpus excerpts from posts that circulated on Twitter from October 7th to 27th, 2018. Besides, the Discourse Analysis, especially through discourse studies in French perspective, is taken as theoretical and analytical device, in order no work with the language and imagetic materiality of the utterances. The qualitative and interdisciplinary study seeks support in the methodological perspective of digital ethnography, in the way of conceiving and studying the polarized communities that surround the social media. The groups called as “communists” and “bolsominions”, according to the representations created in this period, established a relation of harassment with the (O)other, presenting sayings that offended, delegitimized and, in many moments, removed the (O)other of their position as a subject. The defense of an “absolute truth” by the groups contributed for the emergency of a discourse violence, using swearwords and ad hominem attacks. During the 2018’s election the (O)other was put as an “outsider”, taking, in many moments, the position as a “strange”, “abominable”.

The paper investigates the syntactic structure of wh-clauses in late Latin. The results show that, in sentences with a wh-phrase as direct object, the interrogative operator reaches FocP in the left periphery, with the finite verb raising to the Foc head. This spec-head relation accounts for why subjects and dislocated XPs (like topics or focus elements) can not be intervening constituents between the object wh-phrase and the verb. For wh-clauses in which the interrogative operator is an adjunct, the hypothesis is that the wh-phrase occupies [Spec,IntP]. Here, the verb does not move to the CP-field, thus explaining the possibility of intervening subjects and interpolated XPs between the adjunct wh-element and the verb. These results show that the verb second (V2) property of V-to-C movement, as seen in several old Romance languages, can be derived from late Latin, and not exclusively from a supposed influence of Germanic languages, as is assumed in the literature.