Diagnosing the Syntactic Roles of Circumstantial Constituents: Linguistic Insights for Grammar Teaching in Basic Education

• Grant number: 24/22133-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2025
• End date: December 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Aquiles Tescari Neto
• Grantee: Júlia Araujo Neto
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

One of the potential contributions of Educational Linguistics to grammar teaching lies in providing diagnostic tools that, with appropriate pedagogical adaptations, can help address questions and problems tackled in school-based linguistic analysis (Tescari Neto, 2024). This project has two interrelated main objectives. The first is to map-within Brazil's Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) for Portuguese Language in the final years of primary education (Brasil, 2018) and five Portuguese Language textbooks from the Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (2024-2027) also aimed at the same educational stage-knowledge areas and skills (focusing on morphological and syntactic aspects) pertaining to adverbial constituents: circumstantial complements and adverbial adjuncts.The second objective, building on this preliminary research, is to identify-within linguistics manuals, traditional and descriptive grammars, and syntax analysis handbooks-potential diagnostic tools that can clearly identify the syntactic functions of circumstantial and adverbial constituents, thereby distinguishing adverbial adjuncts from circumstantial complements. Exploring such tools aligns with BNCC skill EF08LP10 (Brasil, 2018), extensively addressed in textbooks from the PNLD.Methodologically, the use of these diagnostic tools (modelled on "grammaticality judgments"; cf. Chomsky, 1986) offers the advantage of making students' tacit knowledge explicit. By providing diagnostic elements that differentiate circumstantial constituents-whether as circumstantial complements or adverbial adjuncts-the study aims to contribute to the agenda of Educational Linguistics and to the initial and ongoing professional development of Portuguese language teachers.