Um estudo sobre os objetos cognatos e os adjetivos adverbiais no português do Brasil / A study about the cognate objects and adverbial adjectives in the Brazilian Portuguese

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

In this work, I analyze the phenomenon known as "the adverbial use of adjective" (or "adverbial adjectives"). Such phenomenon, common in Brazilian Portuguese (PB), occurs in sentences such as A Maria falou claro (cf. A Maria falou claramente) and raises a question about the categorial status of the modifier, since it presents adjective form, but behaves like an adverb. Some authors say that, in fact, they are adverbs: the adjectives undergo a morphological process called improper derivation or conversion, which consists of the "shift of a word from a grammatical class to another" (Basílio, 2006:60). Some other authors, such as Carnie (2000) and Negrão, Scher e Viotti (2003), suggest that adjectives and adverbs belong to an unique grammar category. One of the arguments used by the authors is the fact that adjectives and adverbs carry out the same role in sentence: they attribute properties to the items modified by them. These and other existing suggestions in literature have good arguments on their side. However, when we look at some language data, all these suggestions become unsatisfactory, since none of them can explain the following facts: in some contexts, both the adverbial and adjectival forms is possible (A Maria falou claro/claramente); in other contexts, only the adjectival form is possible (A Maria namora firme/*firmemente), and still in others contexts, only the adverbial form can appear in the sentence (Os soldados resistiram heroicamente/*heróico). Based on a generative model for grammar studies, it is necessary to investigate not only the categorial status of the lexical items in question, but also what there is in the subjacent structure of these sentences, that determines the context in which they can or cannot be used. In this work, I suggest that the adverbial adjectives are, in fact, adjectives, since they can modify either an implicit noun in the sentence, namely, the cognate object related to the verb, or, in Levinson (2006)s terms, an individual denoted by the same root as the verbs. In fact, the productivity contexts of these constructions with eventive cognate objects (Leung, 2006) are the same productivity contexts where one can find the adverbial adjectives. Besides, the behavior of the lexical items in question is not so adverbial as it looks: differenty from adverbs, they dont float in the sentence, but they are, obligatorily, adjacent to the verb. Another important factor is that, generally, they cant occur with a thematic object, what should be possible if these items were, in fact, adverbs.

ASSUNTO(S)

adjetivos; eventos; modificadores adverbiais; objeto implícito; objetos cognatos adjectives; adverbial modifier; cognate objects; events; implicit object

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