Syntax and information structure in the first 16th century Portuguese narrative about Brazil

• Grant number: 14/27167-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: April 02, 2015
• End date: February 01, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Historical Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Maria Clara Paixão de Sousa
• Grantee: Maria Clara Paixão de Sousa
• Host Investigator: Susan Pintzuk
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of York, England

Abstract

This Project aims at investigating linguistic and philological aspects of three representative pieces of travel literature: Magalhães de Gandavo's "História da Província Santa Cruz" (1576), Fernão Cardim's "Tratados da terra e gente do Brasil" (1584) and Gabriel Soares de Sousa's "Notícias do Brasil" (1584). From the linguistic perspective, we aim at studying the relationship between syntax and information structure in the texts - including the original versions, their subsequent editions from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and, in some cases, their English, French and Spanish translations. From the philological perspective, we aim at reconstructing the complex editorial history of each text, by systematizing their bibliographical fields and producing critical digital editions of reference versions. The most visible product of the Project will be a linked-data repository organized around this material, which will bind them in a logical unit with several levels of analysis, combining philological, syntactic and information structure annotations. This intensive annotation will serve two purposes: first, it will provide the basis for further grammatical work based on the texts; second, it will provide the material for the investigation of the thematic and structural similarity among those texts - a traditionally observed, but never systematically researched aspect. (AU)