Syntactic and Semantic Aspects of the Verb 'Perigar'

Languages in Contrast, 2006

Despite obvious interference risks, it has been argued in former studies that translations constitute a useful tool for investigating lexical phenomena. By means of a corpus study on prepositional clauses introduced by para in Spanish and Portuguese, the present paper shows that translations can also be a valuable methodological tool for the study of grammatical phenomena in a given language. The results from both a translation and a comparable Portuguese/Spanish and Spanish/Portuguese corpus are shown to converge and reveal that the inflection of the Portuguese infinitive is used to strengthen thematic continuity, whereas an overt subject appears in cases of inaccessibility within the sentence margins. The present study therefore deepens former accounts on the nature of the Portuguese inflected infinitive and the Spanish and Portuguese para-clauses in general by comparing translations in both languages.

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2010

The Proceedings of the 17th …, 2010

Studia Neophilologica, 2015

The traditional English verb classifi cation based upon their grammatical meaning is a certain matrix according to which new units are grouped. The present investigation is aimed at integral describing the verbs of the ‘give’ type in the model “to give a smile”. The analysis of its constituents does not give any new information, however, its analysis as an integral unit in the sentence and discourse can reveal it as a structural-semantic unity, wherein a redistribution of the lexical meaning takes place. Since Otto Jespersen defi ned them as “light verbs" they have been in the focus of research of grammarians, semanticists, discourse experts, and cognitologists. In the framework of our research the referred verbs in the given model are presented as the result of grammaticalization and lexicalization — major factors of the English language development.

Journal of Latin Linguistics, 2015

As the title suggests, this study adopts a functional framework, in which the lexicon of predicates is taken to be the predetermining factor in their syntactic conditions of use: the number of the obligatory elements required and their lexical and functional characteristics. Accordingly, this paper will begin by addressing the problematic issue of the distinction between constituents obligatorily demanded by the predicate for the grammaticality of the construction (arguments) and elements which are not necessary for this (satellites). The issue arises not only from a general perspective, but also in specific cases, such as that of three Latin predicates that share —among other things— a semantic notion of “permanence”: maneo, permaneo and remaneo. At the same time, and given that these verbs are also linked by the mechanism of preverbation, it is essential to examine also whether the presence of different preverbs modifies the syntactic characteristics of structures forming the verbs, as well as the potential semantic differences between them. For this reason, the current session consists of two different but closely interrelated blocks. In the first section I will begin with a study of material drawn from use-based lexicons and corpus analysis of the verbs in question, with the aim of facilitating a first approach to the differentiation (i) of the semantic content that they can have, and (ii) of their possible general complementation patterns. It is in this part of the investigation that a fuller assessment will be made of the problems that arise in the determination of the possible argumental nature of some constituents and the question of absolute verbal uses; this point is seen with greater complexity given the proximity between the content of a locative, existential and/or copulative nature found in various stative verbs. The study of lexical features of the various constituents with which the verb combines, the comparison with the behaviour of other (quasi-)synonymous predicates, and the importance of pragmatic information, will be mechanisms to help identify the syntactic-semantic nature of each case, without the existence of ambiguous cases being possible to rule out entirely. The study of syntactic-semantic differences between the simple verb and its corresponding compounds will be addressed in the second section. For this purpose, various procedures of analysis will serve to confirm the possible differences proposed thus far; these procedures will be, essentially, the study (a) of the expression of the duration of permanence, and (b) of the contexts of co-occurrence of simple verbs and verbs with a preverb. Differences will not always be clear, which suggests a possible neutralization of the expected distinctions in some cases, in such a way that the language is seen to be compelled occasionally to draw on additional lexical and grammatical means for explicitly specifying these presumed distinctions. References Baños, José M., Cabrillana, Concepción, Torrego, M. Esperanza & de la Villa, Jesús (eds.) (2003), Praedicatiua. Complementación en griego y en latín, Anejo 53 de Verba, Santiago de Compostela, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. Database REGLA (“Rección y complementación en griego y latín” [“Corpus of government and complementation on Greek and Latin”]): < http://www.uam.es/proyectosinv/regula/index.html>. Dik, Simon C. (1989), The Theory of Functional Grammar. Part I: The structure of the clause, Dordrecht, Foris. Pinkster, Harm (2015), Oxford Latin Syntax. I: The Simple Clause, preliminary version (accessed on 02/2015). Torrego, M. Esperanza, Baños, José M., Cabrillana, Concepción & Méndez Dosuna, Julián (eds.) (2007), Praedicatiua II. Esquemas de complementación verbal en griego antiguo y latín, Zaragoza, Universidad de Zaragoza. Van Valin, Robert D. & LaPolla, Randy J. (1997), Syntax: structure, meaning and function, Cambridge, CUP.

Journal of Portuguese Linguistics, 2016

This paper analyzes the grammaticalization of modal verbs in Brazilian Portuguese from a synchronic perspective. It takes as its point of departure the hypothesis that grammaticalization is a process in which linguistic elements widen their scope. Since this process is gradual and involves one step at a time, the synchronic correlate of this hypothesis is that if a modal verb has multiple meanings, these meanings should be of contiguous scope types on the grammaticalization scale in their synchronic distribution. The corpus data on which the paper is based show that this prediction is fully confirmed.

In semantic approaches to modality inspired by Kratzer (1981, 1991), modal verbs are construed as introducing possible worlds. An examination of the syntactic properties of English modals suggests a somewhat different perspective. On the one hand, English modal verbs belong to the class of auxiliary verbs which map spatial configurations defined in VP onto a temporal interval defined in TP, deriving events and states. On the other hand, English modal auxiliaries, like lexical modals in Romance, Germanic, and Old English, function as causative verbs: they bridge the gap between an input spatial configuration holding at some instant of time and an output configuration holding at the next instant of time by introducing an instrument capable of effecting the change of configuration. The grammar provides for two types of causality, intentional causality, in which the instrument of change is triggered and manipulated by a [+human] Agent, and metaphysical causality (cf. Condoravdi, 2002) in which the instrument of change needs no human trigger. It is claimed that causative verbs lack the lexical content motivating an Agent argument, and are thus necessarily associated with metaphysical causality. The [+human] subject of causative verbs, including modal verbs, is thus not to be construed as an Agent but rather as an instrument of metaphysical causality.

Tite term "implicative verb" was first used by Kartunnen (1971) tu refer tu titose verbs taking infinitive cumplements witicit imply titat tite action expressed by tite complement verb takes place or dues not take place. It is sitown itere titat tite feature 'implicative' tends tu be associated witfi a particular syntactic pattern uf tite verb (e.g. remembcr+ to mf) and titat ¡bis feature is not part of tite meaning of the verb, but of a lexico-syntactic pattem. Titis paper repurts tite results of a corpusbased analysis uf implicative patterns and describes implicative pattems as verbs in pitase (Le. a sequence uf verbs expressing a single process). Tite fact tfiat titese pattcrns are verbs in pitase accuunts for the features uf ¡be first verb in tite pitase. Tite first verb in the implicative pattern adds a semantic mudification, witicit very frequently has an atiltudinal meaning.

ZAS Papers in Linguistics

This paper draws a link between the typological phenomenon of the paradigmatically supported evidentiality evoked by perfect and/or perfectivity and the equally epistemic system of modal verbs in German. The assumption is that, if perfect(ivity) is at the bottom of evidentiality in a wide number of unrelated languages, then it will not be an arbitrary fact that systematic epistemic readings occur also for the modal verbs in German, which were preterite presents originally. It will be demonstrated, for one, how exactly modal verbs in Modem German still betray sensitivity to perfect and perfective contexts, and, second, how perfect(ivity) is prone to evincing epistemic meaning. Although the expectation cannot be satisfied due to a lack of respective data from the older stages of German, a research path is sketched narrowing down the linguistic questions to be asked and dating results to be reached.