Constructional variation and stabilization in [sei] and [aham sei] as disbelief answers in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze how constructional variation and constructional stabilization occur
with [sei] and [aham sei] as disbelief answers in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) instead of their
common use linked to cognitive sense (the act of knowing something/knowing about something
or knowing how to do something), perceived primarily by differences in intonation and
conversational context. For this, we’ll see the results found by Souza (2024) who, based on
corpora data and tests made with native speakers, seek to understand a little further how
constructional variation happens in this case and what are the preponderant factors for these
speakers to choose those constructions instead of others or vice-versa in some specific
dialogical scenarios. His work, elaborated under a socioconstructionist profile (Machado
Vieira, 2016; Machado Vieira and Wiedemer, 2018; 2019a; 2019b) studied how Construction
Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2006; Traugott and Trousdale, 2013) and Variationist
Sociolinguistic (Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968; Eckert, 2012) can contribute to explain
empirically the results found, which led us to follow the same theoretical path in order to expand
the examples and expose interesting data shown at his work, specially how schematicity and
productivity (Traugott and Trousdale, 2013) happen within these constructions. In sum, we
present the most prominent results of a work that studies how prosodic features interfere in the
form-meaning paring in the analyzed data, an interface still underexplored at the constructional
studies field.