The semantic-pragmatic mechanisms of semifixed expressions of Portuguese

• Grant number: 13/20425-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2014
• End date: July 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Dirceu Cleber Conde
• Grantee: Lucas Bueno Bergantin
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this work is try to comprehend the structures e and the functioning of certain formulaic sequences in Brazilian Portuguese that have semifixed behavior, namely, it is composed of fixed constituents and interchangeable elements - for example, "x que é x não p" or "veja se está escrito x na minha testa", and so on. Our goal is set up a plausible explanation of the concept of semifixed sentence as well as understand its semantic-pragmatic mechanisms. For this, we make use of semantic-formal theories and pragmatic principles in order to understand the functioning of the propositions of such sentences. Such work is justified by the need to explain this special kind of formulaic sequence that remains uncomprehended.