A constructionist representation of adverbial adjectives and their semantics in Brazilian Portuguese
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31513/linguistica.2024.v20n2a64044Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of adverbial adjectives in Brazilian Portuguese. Through the lens of Usage Based Construction Grammar and Exemplar Theory, we propose a semantic representation for the Adverbial Adjective Construction (AAC). Since, depending on the type of modifier root, some items are interchangeable in some contexts, but not in others, we hypothesize that these similarities and differences are represented in the architecture by an intermediated level made up of semantic classes licensing the adverbial items. A thorough qualitative-interpretative analysis, based on data extracted from different corpora, made it possible to identify eight semantic classes representing eight constructions at the intermediate level. Thus, this study claims that semantic classes specific to the AAC should be posited, which influence the selection and licensing of adverbial items.
Keywords: Adverbial adjective. Semantics. Usage Based Construction Grammar.
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