On the inchoativity of the portuguese verbs endingin -ecer
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/1984-8412.2021.e79094Abstract
The Portuguese grammatical tradition generally assumes that -ecer is a suffix component characteristic of inchoative verbs, in other words, verbs that express the beginning of a state or process. In this article, we will seek to determine the extent to which this aspectual value of the verbs ending in -ecer is attested in both contemporary Portuguese and earlier stages of the language. For that purpose, we will analyse the meaning of five verbs ending in -ecer (adormecer ‘to fall asleep’, amanhecer ‘to dawn’, amarelecer ‘to yellow’, apodrecer ‘to rot’, endurecer ‘to harden’) along their diachronic path based on instances found in the CIPM - Corpus Informatizado do Português Medieval and lexicographic corpora published from the 16th century onwards. The available data allow us to conclude that as early as Ancient Portuguese, verbs ending in -ecer denote events that focus on the final stage of the change suffered by an entity, rather than expressing an event in its beginning.
References
ACADEMIA DAS CIÊNCIAS DE LISBOA. Dicionário da língua portuguesa contemporânea. Lisboa: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa / Editorial Verbo, 2001.
ALEXIADOU, A. On the morpho-syntax of (anti-)causative verbs. In: RAPPAPORT HOVAV, M.; DORON, E.; SICHEL, I. (ed.). Syntax, lexical semantics and event structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 177-203.
ALEXIADOU, A. The causative alternation revisited: constraints and variation. English Linguistics, v. 32, n. 1, p. 1-21, 2015.
ALLEN, A. S. Regrammaticalization and degrammaticalization of the inchoative suffix. In: ANDERSEN, H. (ed.). Historical linguistics 1993. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995. p. 1-8.
BECHARA, E. Moderna gramática portuguesa. 37.ed. revista e ampliada. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1999.
BERTINETTO, P. M.; SQUARTINI, M. An attempt at defining the class of ‘gradual completion verbs’. In: BERTINETTO, P. M. et al. (ed.). Temporal reference, aspect and actionality. Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, v. 1, 1995. p. 11-26.
BLAYLOCK, C. The Romance development of the Latin verbal augment -sk-. Romance Philology, v. 28, p. 434-444, 1975.
BLUTEAU, R. Vocabulario portuguez e latino […]. Coimbra: Collegio das Artes da Companhia de Jesus, 1712-1728.
BORER, H. The causative-inchoative alternation: a case study in parallel morphology. The Linguistic Review, v. 8, p. 119-158, 1991.
CÂMARA JR., J. M. História e estrutura da língua portuguesa. 3.ed. Rio de Janeiro: Padrão Editora, 1979.
CARDOSO, J. Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem. Coimbra: João Álvares, 1562-1563.
CENTRO DE LINGUÍSTICA DA UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA. CIPM - Corpus informatizado do português medieval: Disponível em: https://cipm.fcsh.unl.pt/gencontent.jsp?id=4. Acesso em: 27 dez. 2020.
CENTRO DE LINGUÍSTICA DA UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA .DVPM - Dicionário de verbos do português medieval. Disponível em: https://clunl.fcsh.unl.pt/recursos-em-linha/dicionario-de-verbos-portugues-medieval-dvpm/. Acesso em: 07 jul. 2020.
CUNHA, C.; CINTRA, L. Nova gramática do português contemporâneo. 10.ed. Lisboa: João Sá da Costa, 1994.
FÁBREGAS, A. Los verbos de realización gradual: estructura léxica. Revista Española de Lingüística, v.32, n.2, p. 475-506, 2002.
FERNÁNDEZ LAGUNILLA, M.; MIGUEL, E. Relaciones entre el léxico y la sintaxis: adverbios de foco y delimitadores aspectuales. Verba, v. 26, p. 97-198, 1999.
FIGUEIREDO, C. Grande dicionário da língua portuguesa, v. 1. 25.ed. Venda Nova: Bertrand, 1996.
FONSECA, J. Aspectos centrais da semântica-sintaxe e pragmática dos predicados de sentimento. Diacrítica, n 13-14, p. 237-278, 1998-1999.
GLARE, P. G. W. (ed.). Oxford latin dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
GREENBERG, J. H. The last stages of grammatical elements: contractive and expansive desemanticization. In: TRAUGOTT, E. C.; HEINE, B. (ed.). Approaches to grammaticalization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1991, v. I, p. 301-314.
GRIMSHAW, J. Argument structure. Cambridge/MA: The MIT Press, 1990.
HAOUET, L. En torno a la relación entre morfología y sintaxis: la formación de los parasintéticos en español. Tesis (Doctoral) - Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, 2000.
HӒRTL, H. Conceptual and grammatical characteristics of argument alternations: the case of decausative verbs. Linguistics, v. 41, p. 883-916, 2003.
HASPELMATH, M. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In: COMRIE, B.; POLINSKY, M. (ed.). Causatives and transitivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1993, p. 87-120.
HOUAISS, A.; VILLAR, M. S.; FRANCO, F. M. M. (dir.). Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, v. III. Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores, 2003.
ILIESCU, M. Les suffixes d’álargissement verbaux. (Etat de la question. Evolution sémantique de –ESC / -ISC.). In: CALBOLI, G. (ed.). Latin vulgaire – Latin tardif II (=Actes du IIème Colloque International sur le latin vulgaire et tardif, Bologne, 1988). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1990. p. 159-169.
KOONTZ-GARBODEN, A. Anticausativization. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, v. 27, p. 77-138, 2009.
LABELLE, M. La structure argumentale des verbes locatifs a base nominale. Linguisticae Investigationes, v. XVI, n. 2, p. 267-315, 1992.
LEVIN, B.; RAPPAPORT HOVAV, M. A preliminary analysis of causative verbs in English. Lingua, v. 92, p. 35-77, 1994.
LEVIN, B.; RAPPAPORT HOVAV, M. Lexical semantics and syntactic structure. In: LAPPIN, S. (ed.). The handbook of contemporary semantic theory. Oxford, Cambridge/MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996. p. 487-507.
LEVIN, B.; RAPPAPORT HOVAV, M. Morphology and lexical semantics. In: SPENCER, A.; ZWICKY, A. M. (ed.). The handbook of morphology. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. p. 248-271.
LIEBER, R. Lexical semantics, mapping in and from the lexicon, and the internal structure of words. In: MATOS, G. et al. (ed.). Interfaces in linguistic theory. Lisboa: APL / Edições Colibri, 1997, p. 221–240.
LIEBER, R .Morphology and lexical semantics. Cambridge/UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
MIGUEL, E.; FERNÁNDEZ LAGUNILLA, M. El operador aspectual se. Revista Española de Lingüística, v. 30, n. 1, p. 13-43, 2000.
OLIVEIRA, F. Tempo e aspecto. In: MATEUS, M. H. M. et al.. Gramática da língua portuguesa. 5.ed. revista e aumentada. Lisboa: Caminho, 2003. p. 127-178.
PENA, J. La formación de verbos en español: la sufijación verbal. In: VARELA, S. (ed.). La formación de palabras. Madrid: Taurus Ediciones, 1993, p. 217-281.
PEREIRA, R. Formação de verbos em português: afixação heterocategorial. Muenchen: Lincom Europa, 2007.
PEREIRA, R. Formação de verbos. In: RIO-TORTO, G. et al.. Gramática derivacional do português. 2.ed. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2006. p. 297-355.
PEREIRA, R. “Não me aquenta, nem me arrefenta”. Considerações a propósito da origem e evolução dos verbos terminados em -entar em português. Labor Histórico, v. 6, n. 1, p. 1-16, 2020.
PEREIRA, R. Unidade e diversidade semântica dos verbos derivados em português. Verba, v. 36, p. 15-46, 2009.
PIEL, J. M. Formação de palavras. In: ACADEMIA DAS CIÊNCIAS DE LISBOA, Dicionário da língua portuguesa. v. I. 2.ed. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda, 1976. p. xxii xxviii.
PIÑON, CH. Modelling the causative-inchoative alternation. Linguistische Arbeitsberichte, v. 76, p. 273-93, 2001.
PUSTEJOVSKY, J. The syntax of event structure. Cognition, v. 41, p. 47-81, 1991.
RAMCHAND, G. C. Aspect and predication. The semantics of argument structure. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
RAPPAPORT HOVAV, M. Deconstructing internal causation. In: BAR-ASHER SIEGAL, E.; BONEH, N. (ed.). Perspectives on causation. Jerusalem studies in philosophy and history of science. Cham: Springer, 2020, p. 219-255.
RAPPAPORT HOVAV, M.; LEVIN, B. Building verb meanings. In: BUTT, M.; GEUDER, E. W. (ed.). The projection of arguments: lexical and compositional factors. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 1998. p. 97-134.
RAPPAPORT HOVAV, M.; LEVIN, B. Lexicon uniformity and the causative alternation. In: EVERAERT, M.; MARELJ, M.; SILONI, T. (ed.). The theta system: argument structure at the interface. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. p. 150-176.
RAPPAPORT, M.; LEVIN, B.; LAUGHREN, M. Niveaux de représentation lexicale. Lexique, v. 7, p. 13-32, 1988.
SCHÄFER, F. The causative alternation. Language and Linguistic Compass, v. 3, p. 641-681, 2009.
SILVA, A. M. Diccionario da lingua portugueza [...]. Lisboa: Of. de Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, 1789.
VIEIRA, D. Grande diccionario portuguez / Thesouro da lingua portugueza. Porto: Em Casa dos Editores Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, 1871-1874.
ZAMBONI, A. La morfologia verbale latina in -sc- e la sua evoluzione romanza, appunti per una nuova via esplicativa. Quaderni patavini di linguística, v. 3, p. 87-138, 1982-1983.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Rights including those in copyright in the content of the published works are owned by Revista Forum Linguistico. Complete or parcial reprint should be authorized by the Editorial Board of the Journal. In case of authorization, the source of the original publication must be stated.
