Verbal predication and discursive impersonalization: gradience and alternation in the Portuguese Construction Grammar

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22481/el.v18i1.6131

Keywords:

Construction Grammar; Discursive impersonalization; Predication; Alternation; Functional gradience.

Abstract

This paper deals with the phenomenon of participant discursive impersonalization that encodes the inducing force of an event, focusing on the delimitation of verbal predication constructions that promote it and are in alternation. In general, the intention is to describe the verbal predication constructions that provide the conceptualization of events in which the aforementioned participant is defocused or suspended and to relate them to observations that result from researches regarding the constitutive attributes of some of them and contextual factors. This description is based on a theoretical framework that articulates orientations from the functional-cognitive perspective based on the use and orientations from the variationist sociolinguistic perspective and on the examination of data samples obtained from journalistic and academic texts. The mapping of verbal predication constructions triggered in favor of discursive impersonalization leads us to a variety of structures involving: support verbs ter and haver (to have) or semi-support sofrer (to suffer), indeterminate, arbitrary or vague reference pronouns, passive pronoun or auxiliary verb of passive voice. It also enables the identification of cases of (more prominent or less) defocussing or (total or partial) concealment of this participant, as well as cases of its suppression. It also promotes generalizations concerning the alternation between some of these constructions.

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Author Biography

Márcia dos Santos Machado Vieira, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ/BRAZIL)

Marcia dos Santos Machado Vieira holds a PhD in Portuguese Language from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, professor of the Postgraduate Program in Vernacular Letters with expertise in the research area Language and Society: Variation and Change. Has experience with: variation and change in phonetic (pretonic) and morphosyntactic phenomena (forms of treatment or referentiality and verbal constructions); changing linguistic forms through grammaticalization, lexicalization, constructional change and constructionalization; predication; auxiliary; discursive impersonalization; temporality, aspectuality and modalization. She coordinates the PREDICAR Project - Formation and expression of complex predicates, since 2002; integrates the research group Discurso & Gramática (UFRJ headquarters); integrates, in the 2014-2020 management, the coordination of Axis 1 of the Sociolinguistics WG of ANPOLL (Linguistic Variation and Change); coordinates this WG in the 2018-2020 biennium; he is a member of the Research Ethics Committee of IESC / UFRJ and of NDE courses at the Faculty of Letters / UFRJ; she is one of the managing editors of Diadorim Magazine: linguistic and literary studies of the Postgraduate Program in Vernacular Letters; currently chairs the Organizing Committee of the International Forum on Sociolinguistics (www.fis2019.com.br).

References

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Published

2020-04-30

How to Cite

MACHADO VIEIRA, M. dos S. Verbal predication and discursive impersonalization: gradience and alternation in the Portuguese Construction Grammar. Language Studies, [S. l.], v. 18, n. 1, p. 65-84, 2020. DOI: 10.22481/el.v18i1.6131. Disponível em: https://periodicos2.uesb.br/index.php/estudosdalinguagem/article/view/6131. Acesso em: 24 aug. 2024.

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 1 (2020): Estudos da Língua(gem) - ISSN: 1982-0534

Section

Papers

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