Training and interpretation of denominal verbs in Brazilian Portuguese

• Grant number: 07/02304-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: September 01, 2007
• End date: June 30, 2009
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Ana Paula Scher
• Grantee: Indaiá de Santana Bassani
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Much has already been noticed on the correlation between verbs and nouns, regarding the formation of Deverbal Nouns (DN) and the formation of Denominal Verbs (DV). However, especially in the scope of Brazilian Portuguese, the current researches seem to be more focused on the study of Deverbal Nouns: Basílio (1980; 1996); Scher (2004; 2007). This work intends to describe and analyze the morphologic properties first and, in sequence, the interpretative properties of the DVs in Brazilian Portuguese. For such, it will be necessary to constitute a corpus by survey of occurrences of these verbs in a dictionary of Portuguese and, from these data, to analyze the process and the place of these formations. Although some works have already been developed about the DVs in BP (Basílio (1993; 1996)), there are not satisfactory conclusions. Lexicalist theories suggest that these verbs are formed in the lexicon component of the grammar(Basílio, (1993)); other theories suggest that the formation of these verbs occurs by a syntactic process that happens in the lexicon (Hale & Keyser, (1993)) and other recent theories, like the Distributed Morphology (DM), suggest that these verbs are formed from nominal roots by operations of the syntactic component (Harley, (1999; 2003)). Given the variety of options, it is clearly that the nature of these formations is not consensus. The present work will start with the analysis of the empirical data to decide later for one of the theoretical models for the treatment of word formation. At first, the DM seems interesting to explain some occurrences recently observed, like the fact that the interpretation of some DVs seem to be independent of the interpretation of its corresponding noun.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

BASSANI, Indaiá de Santana. Training and interpretation of the denominal verbs of the portuguese of Brazil. 2009. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.