Genericity and Prosody: an interface study

• Grant number: 11/08952-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2011
• End date: January 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Marcello Modesto dos Santos
• Grantee: João Vinicius de Almeida Braga
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project will deal with the prosody of sentences in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) expressing genericity. The literature on the subject is extensive, and we are basing the project mainly on Krifka et. al. (1995), Chierchia (1998), Carlson (1972), and specifically for BP on various papers by Müller and Schmitt & Munn (1999). We will work on definite generic DPs, determined indefinite DPs, bare nominals and event semantics, paying special attention to the conditions which favor the expression of genericity paying attention to conditions that favor expression of genericity in the predicate through adverb or a generic operator in the logical form of the sentence. We shall deal with some aspects of bare nominals, like the appearance of bare singular in subject position of episodic sentences, and also in different possible combinations of types of predicate and noun phrases. We will explore some syntactic issues, for example, the implications of Viotti & Müller's (2003) statement that subjects of generic sentences are in A-bar positions: on the one hand, this statement may suggest that individuals not bare DPs are (contrary to what is usually assumed) on the other, requires that differences between the prosody of generic and episodic sentences. We will map the intonations based on the syntactic position in which the genericity is expressed and type of information is conveyed, either generic in the predicate or in the nominal phrase. Among the topics of analysis are the sentences that can receive both an existential and general interpretation , on which our hypothesis is that the prosody takes care to undo the mentioned ambiguity. We use the Praat software and the Momel modelizator to perform the data recording and analysis, following the guidelines proposed by Celeste (2007).

Academic Publications

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

BRAGA, João Vinicius de Almeida. Topics in Brazilian Portuguese: a study on phonology and prosodic structure. 2015. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.