The morphosyntactic positioning of post-nominal modifiers: a functional discourse analysis

• Grant number: 22/11114-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2023
• End date: July 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Roberto Gomes Camacho
• Grantee: Nathalia Pereira de Souza Martins
• Supervisor: Pieter Cornelis Hengeveld
• 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
• Institution abroad: University of Amsterdam (UvA), Netherlands
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/00492-4 - The ordering of post-nuclear modifiers of the noun phrase, BP.DR

Abstract

This project aims to investigate the ordering of constituents at the Noun phrase level, more specifically the morphosyntactic organization of its post-head modifiers, in order to verify which ordering principles are behind the process and what is the prototypical order of Brazilian Portuguese. To this end, based on the theoretical framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (HENGEVELD; MACKENZIE, 2008), this work aims to establish whether the modification categories proposed by Rijkhoff (2008), in a typological study of the noun phrase, apply to Brazilian Portuguese, and how the pragmatic, semantic and morphosyntactic nature of the modifiers can determine (or, in part, influence) the order of the elements. Our main hypothesis predicts a representational alignment since the constituent ordering at the Noun phrase level, especially at its post-head zone, seems to be due predominantly to semantic factors, which also means that the modification model (RIJKHOFF, 2008) is verified in Brazilian Portuguese. We also believe that the phenomenon exhibits transparency by taking into account the action of ordering principles, such as Domain Integrity, Iconicity, Functional Stability (HENGEVELD; MACKENZIE, 2008) and Increasing Complexity (DIK, 1997). The data sample for analysis consists of spoken language records extracted from the Iboruna database, which represents the spoken variety of São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo State. Methodologically, we intend to select Noun phrases with more than one post-head modifier and apply pragmatic, semantic, and morphosyntactic criteria, in search of a detailed description of both the order and the nature of the modifiers. (AU)