THE CONSTRUCTION NP + V + NPBARE IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: AN USAGE-BASED APPROACH
KEYWORDS: Light Verb; NPBARE; Chunk; Functional Usage-Based Linguistics; Construction Grammar.
The object of study of this work is the argument structure construction Nominal Phrase+ Verb+ Bare Nominal Phrase (NP+ V+ NPBARE). The aim is to examine the constructs of this construction that constitute chunks in digital texts in Brazilian Portuguese. Therefore, we identify the subschemas of this construction in terms of the verbs that constitute them and the properties of schematicity, productivity, and compositionality. We seek to demonstrate how these constructional patterns are distributed along a continuum, according to the degree of weakening of the verb lexical meaning. The analysis is grounded on the theoretical-methodological model of Functional Usage-Based Linguistics (FURTADO DA CUNHA; BISPO; SILVA, 2013), with contributions of Construction Grammar (GOLDBERG, 1995; TRAUGOTT; TROUSDALE, 2013; BYBEE, (2016 [2010]). The method of the research is qualitative, in order to show syntactic-semantic regularities in the instances of NP+V+NPBARE, with quantitative support, aiming to observe the frequency of use. The analyzed data are from web texts, which are placed into the field of digital communication and virtual interactions. The results indicate that the chunks instantiating this construction show both syntactic versatility and semantic unity, which manifest cognitive motivations and lead to discursive effects that seem to express more clearly the communicative intent of the speakers.