The polyfunctionality of que in Brazilian Portuguese: an interactional-constructional analysis

• Grant number: 20/03339-2
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: February 01, 2021 - July 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Flavia Bezerra de Menezes Hirata Vale
• Grantee: Flavia Bezerra de Menezes Hirata Vale
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

It is a well known fact that the connective "que", in Brazilian Portuguese, as well as in other Romance languages, is a multifunctional item, which can fulfill different functions in the process of clause connecting, such as those of completive conjunction, coordinated explicative conjunction, causal subordinate conjunction, and relative pronoun, thus constituting a source of difficulties for the grammatical explanation from a strictly normative point of view. Also with regard to descriptive linguistics, the use of "que" imposes challenges, since in some linguistic theories it is still considered that there is, in grammatical signs, a two-way relationship between form and meaning. The objective of this project is to describe and analyze different uses of the "que" connective in Brazilian Portuguese, adopting a constructional-interactional perspective, which means that this connective will be treated based on the assumption that its functioning is better determined if its role in situations of social interaction is understood, and its relevance in a constructional network of (in) subordination (GOLDBERG, 1995, 2005). In this sense, based on the theoretical reflections developed by Evans (2007, 2009), Mithun (2008), Gras (2011, 2016), Verstraete, D'Hertefelt, Van Linden (2012), Van Linden and Van de Velde (2014 ), D'Hertefelt, (2014, 2015, 2018), Sansiñena (2015, 2019), among others, this project proposes to establish the relationship between three different types of constructions headed by "que": the insubordinate, the semi-insubordinate and the explicative-causals. The discursive contexts in which these constructions are used will be established, as well as their formal and functional characteristics, which approximate and differentiate them. With this project it is expected to arrive at a more systematic treatment of the processes of (in) subordination in Portuguese, in addition to contributing to the typology works that deal with this phenomenon in different languages (Sansiñena, 2015, 2019; Coimbra, 2020; Beijering, 2016, 2017; Beijering, Norde, 2019, Wiemer, 2019). (AU)