Compounds with fobia in portuguese: a constructional study in historical perspective

Abstract

In this paper, we intend to reflect upon the change processes associated with compounds with fobia in Portuguese, considering the Greek form φοβία, its Latinization with phŏbĭa, its entrance in Portuguese in the 16th century and the proliferation of [X-fobia]_S forms starting from the 19th century. Forms both dictionary-included (aracnofobia, claustrofobia, fonofobia, hidrofobia and necrofobia), and non-dictionary-included (brancofobia, casalfelizfobia, cabelobrancofobia, gordofobia, PDFfobia, pobrefobia, putafobia and uvapassafobia) are analyzed. Our theoretical-descriptive framework includes the assumptions of Construction Morphology, as presented by Booij (2010), Gonçalves (2016), Soledade (2018) and Simões Neto (2022), and Diachronic Construction Grammar, based on Traugott and Trousdale (2021). Among many questions, our article aims to assess: (a) whether, from a formal point of view, the X-fobia pattern in contemporary Portuguese is no longer a morphological compound, with a trapped element (aracn[o]-fobia; fon[o]-fobia), to become a NN type morphosyntactic compound (pobrefobia, putafobia); (b) how, from a semantic point of view, the idea of pathological fear in the first attested drawings gave way to the meaning of aversion and hatred in contemporary times. The evaluation of the formal and semantic behavior of the X-fobia pattern will allow us to say whether it is a constructional change or a constructionalization. Considering the scope of the proposal, the data analyzed come from various sources: (a) The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (MONTANARI, 2005), for the Greek data, (b) Dictionnaire Latin-Français (GAFFIOT, 2016), for the Latin data, (c) Dicionário Houaiss Eletrônico de Língua Portuguesa (HOUAISS; VILLAR, 2009), for the dictionary-included forms in Portuguese, (d) Twitter, for the non-dictionary-included forms.