Grammatical variants of the ditransitive construction in Brazilian Portuguese
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Maria Angélica Furtado da Cunha
Abstract
This paper aims at demonstrating that the ditransitive construction in Brazilian Portuguese can be instantiated by different syntactic patterns that express the same propositional content but differ in discursive-pragmatic terms. In this sense, I argue that these patterns constitute different possibilities for the same construction instead of two different ones. This paper combines assumptions and analytical categories of Usage-based Functional Linguistics and Construction Grammar. The data analyzed comes from journalistic texts, spontaneous speech, and transcribed interviews. The examination of the empirical material proved that the alternatives for ordering the arguments of the Brazilian Portuguese ditransitive construction indicate different perspectives of the referential event. Discursive- pragmatic, semantic and grammatical factors motivate the preference for placing the indirect object before the direct object in these clauses, such as informational status, topicality, animacy and definiteness of the recipient argument, perspective-taking of the communicated event, and coding of the indirect and direct objects.
Abstract
This paper aims at demonstrating that the ditransitive construction in Brazilian Portuguese can be instantiated by different syntactic patterns that express the same propositional content but differ in discursive-pragmatic terms. In this sense, I argue that these patterns constitute different possibilities for the same construction instead of two different ones. This paper combines assumptions and analytical categories of Usage-based Functional Linguistics and Construction Grammar. The data analyzed comes from journalistic texts, spontaneous speech, and transcribed interviews. The examination of the empirical material proved that the alternatives for ordering the arguments of the Brazilian Portuguese ditransitive construction indicate different perspectives of the referential event. Discursive- pragmatic, semantic and grammatical factors motivate the preference for placing the indirect object before the direct object in these clauses, such as informational status, topicality, animacy and definiteness of the recipient argument, perspective-taking of the communicated event, and coding of the indirect and direct objects.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents VII
- Presentation 1
- Grammar in the mind and in the society: Evidence from European and Brazilian pluricentric Portuguese 7
- Lexicon pluricentrality and pluricircularity in Portuguese language varieties 35
- Middle voice in Brazilian Portuguese from the theoretical perspective of Cognitive Grammar 65
- A functional/cognitive approach to hápax and quasi-hápax in Brazilian Portuguese suffixation 93
- Non-concatenative verbal inflection in Brazilian Portuguese: A construction grammar approach 115
- Non-prototypic contrastive constructions in varieties of Portuguese 157
- Intercalated temporal clauses in formal written Brazilian Portuguese 175
- Grammatical variants of the ditransitive construction in Brazilian Portuguese 201
- Discourse marker with the verb saber (‘to know’) closing discourse topic: Analyzing oral narratives in brazilian Portuguese 223
- Analysis of conversation and its many knots 251
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents VII
- Presentation 1
- Grammar in the mind and in the society: Evidence from European and Brazilian pluricentric Portuguese 7
- Lexicon pluricentrality and pluricircularity in Portuguese language varieties 35
- Middle voice in Brazilian Portuguese from the theoretical perspective of Cognitive Grammar 65
- A functional/cognitive approach to hápax and quasi-hápax in Brazilian Portuguese suffixation 93
- Non-concatenative verbal inflection in Brazilian Portuguese: A construction grammar approach 115
- Non-prototypic contrastive constructions in varieties of Portuguese 157
- Intercalated temporal clauses in formal written Brazilian Portuguese 175
- Grammatical variants of the ditransitive construction in Brazilian Portuguese 201
- Discourse marker with the verb saber (‘to know’) closing discourse topic: Analyzing oral narratives in brazilian Portuguese 223
- Analysis of conversation and its many knots 251
