Interjections as indexicals: counterpointing theories

• Grant number: 15/23206-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): February 01, 2016
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Renato Miguel Basso
• Grantee: Ariane Teixeira
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Among the word classes traditionally recognized , the interjections category is certainly one of the least studied, and therefore, it still depends on vague definitions in the grammar books and also in various linguistic studies that , in general, is summed up to a list of words whose function is to "express feelings and emotions. " This definition, not only says very little about this category, but also, it is wrong due to: (I) there are other words that also express feelings and emotions, and (II) not all interjections have the function to express feelings and emotions. It is precisely because of the lack of studies and a few misconceptions about the items in this word class, coupled with its high productivity, we conducted between 2014 and 2015, an undergraduate student project with FAPESP (process number 2014 / 05053-8; Teixeira, 2014, 2015). Thus based on the results obtained in the previous project we propose a new theoretical perspective on these items. The analysis of the author explores the idea of restrictions placed on use of contexts in a interestingly and well articulated way, our proposal is based on the same idea of his, we meant to investigate and contrast it to those items that we developed in the previous project. By doing an exploration of this subject, we guarantee an enhancement of the interpretation of interjections, increasing the scope of formal theories of meaning in natural language. At the same time, we will increase our knowledge of interjections in PB and its function a subject that has only begun to be explored.