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Unaccusativity and light verb syntax: the case of ficar in Brazilian Portuguese| title | Unaccusativity and light verb syntax: the case of ficar in Brazilian Portuguese |
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| start_date | 2025/01/27 |
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| schedule | 14h-16h30 |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | visioconférence |
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| summary | This talk examines the syntax of the verb ficar in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), focusing on its grammaticalization process and subsequent functional expansion into an existential verb, auxiliary verb, copula, and control verb. Through this evolution, ficar has developed the capacity to convey meanings ranging from inchoative and iterative aspects to irrealis mood. My investigation therefore centers on the polysemy of ficar, exploring its grammaticalization path and the mechanisms enabling its semantic versatility, with particular emphasis on identifying the underlying commonalities across its various meanings.
Drawing on Marantz’s (1984) event decomposition framework, I propose that ficar is fundamentally an autocausative verb that evolved from a causative use (a putting verb, cf. Levin et al., 1995). I argue that most constructions involving ficar share two core syntactic components—VoiceP and vP—as integral elements of its internal structure. The diverse semantic interpretations appear to emerge from the interaction between these projections and their complements, with variations particularly evident when the complement is a verb phrase, where meaning differences correlate with the matrix verb’s event structure.
The analysis extends to a comparative examination of ficar and another significant BP light verb, estar, revealing both shared properties and crucial distinctions. Key areas of discussion include the syntactic encoding of change-of-state predicates (Alexiadou et al., 2006; Schäfer, 2008); the (in)compatibility of stage-level and individual-level predicates (Kratzer, 1995) with these two verbs; the realization of iterative, durative, and inchoative aspects through gerunds; and the relationship between embedded CPs and irrealis mood expression (Stowell, 1982). The talk concludes with a cross-linguistic investigation of similar phenomena, reflecting my current research, aimed at identifying common patterns and deriving broader linguistic generalizations. |
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| responsibles | Cabredo Hofherr |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2025/01/21 13:35 UTC |
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