Semantic and pragmatic properties of modifiers of the noun phrase head

Author(s)

Helker Nhoato

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São José do Rio Preto. 2018-07-24.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Instituto de Biociências Letras e Ciências Exatas. São José do Rio Preto
• Defense date: 2018-07-02
• Advisor: Roberto Gomes Camacho

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze, from a functional perspective, the adjectival modifiers of Noun Phrases, focusing on the semantic motivation of the Noun Phrase head: whether headed by first-order entities or Individuals or second-order entities or States-of-Affairs (LYONS, 1977; HENGEVELD, 2008). The purpose of this work is to give some priority to the pragmatic and semantic properties of adjectival modifiers in the variety of Brazilian Portuguese spoken in the northwest of São Paulo State. In order to do so, the analysis based on a functional perspective is aligned to the theoretical framework of The Theory of Functional Grammar (DIK, 1997a) and of the Functional Discourse Grammar (HENGEVELD; MACKENZIE, 2008). These authors provide a semantic classification of the constituents of the Noun Phrases which is based on their reference to entities (Individuals or States-of-Affairs) of a world and they analyze the process of modification of these entities by the attribution of a property. The analysis of the relationship between modifiers and the head of the Noun Phrases, initially, considers the classification proposed by Negrão et al. (2014), who distinguish adjectives in arguments and predicates. This distinction means that lexical items that, on the one hand, take a position open by the deverbal noun and, on the other hand, those who open a thematic positions taken by the nuclear referent of the Noun Phrase. Moreover, to analyze the semantic aspects of the modifiers, this study considers the classifications proposed by Castilho (2010), Castilho and Moraes de Castilho (1993), Cinque (2010) and Neves (2010). The sample examined was extracted from the IBORUNA Corpus, which was conceived by the Functional Grammar Research Group (Grupo de Pesquisa em Gramática Funcional), of São Paulo State University (UNESP) at São José do Rio Preto. The analysis shows, firstly, that: regardless of the type of entity involved in the head, whether first or second order, the modification after the head (postmodification) is where the adjective is largely preferred to occur in Morphosyntactic Encoding. In addition, the distribution through the place before the head (premodification) and postmodification in relation to the Noun Phrase head is provided with a high degree of regularity motivated by specific semantic features of the modifier. Secondly, the premodification, even if it is applied with low frequency in the data, is properly aligned to pragmatic and semantic specific features. Finally, these results show how semantic motivations and, less frequently, pragmatic ones, are involved in the fulfilling of specific positions of adjectives inside the Noun Phrase. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/00661-5 - SEMANTIC PRAGMATIC PROPERTIES OF NOMINAL HEAD MODIFIERS
• Grantee: Helker Nhoato
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master