Juncture '(i)n' change

• Grant number: 15/04512-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2015
• Effective date (End): January 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Historical Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Sanderléia Roberta Longhin
• Grantee: Sanderléia Roberta Longhin
• Host Investigator: Jacqueline Visconti
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Università degli Studi di Genova, Italy
• Associated research grant: 11/51787-5 - Project for the History of Paulista Brazilian Portuguese, AP.TEM

Abstract

This project aims to study the nature of the contexts involved in change processes regarding joining words, as a fruitful way of understanding the reasons for such changes, supporting the unidirectional tendency for subjectivization of meanings and recognizing the gradual movement toward the constitution of new categories and meanings. My focus is to enhance a quantitative methodology for diachronic investigation, therefore taking into consideration the changes in meaning which affect constructions with enquanto in Brazilian Portuguese. The main issues to be analyzed are: 1) considering that change occurs progressively in particular contexts, how can the increasing pragmatization and subjectivization of meaning be measured methodologically from a diachronic perspective? 2) to what extent does recognizing synchronic subjectivity markers help to reconstitute diachronic subjectivity? 3) which criteria could we use to measure the more and less subjective? 4) which contextual markers promote pragmatic enrichment? This research shall enable us to follow the emergence of new functional patterns for enquanto over time, as a gradual process which consolidates, one by one, the form and meaning parameters involved in the development of new constructions. (AU)