Grammatical constructions with the verb to go in contemporary Brasilian Portuguese
Constructions with the verb to go; Semantic extension; (Inter)Subjectivity; Usage-Based Functional Linguistics; Construction Grammar.
This thesis examines grammatical constructions with the verb to go in Brazilian Portuguese. The hypothesis is that this verb, in front of other linguistic elements like seeing, that, there and still, forms grammatical constructions, as proposed in Goldberg (1995). Thus, interest to investigate the semantic-cognitive and discursive-pragmatic functions of these constructions, examining: 1) the constitutive elements of the construction in its morphosyntactic and semantic aspects; 2) the contexts of use of these constructions and their instantiations; 3) cognitive processes involved for the categorical and semantic differentiation; and 4) discursive-pragmatic motivations implicated in the uses of these constructions. The research is theoretically based on the assumptions of Usage-Based Functional Linguistics articulated to the Construction Grammar. The methodology is from a qualitative-interpretative basis, in which exemplars configured in discursive patterns produced in real communication situations are analyzed. The data were collected from the following sources:Corpus Discurso & Gramática, Banco Conversacional de Natal, Corpus do Português, and Google search engine. The results indicate that the constructions with to go can be considered, to some extent, partially filled, with limitedtypes and gradient in compositionality. Moreover, they point out that these constructions emerged based on semantic extensions and that they are strongly linked to (inter)subjectivity.