Natural que Seja Assim: a proposal for a constructional network of semi-insubordinate constructions in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

A semi-insubordinate construction (SIC) is defined by Van Linden and Van de Velde (2014) as a construction formed by an initial non-clausal constituent (X) followed by a que-clause (clause started by the conjunction que, a typical form of subordinate clauses), which serves as its propositional complement. In a recently concluded work, it was verified the occurrence of initial constituents that differ from the formal and functional characteristics already described. Figure in the literature the adjectival, nominal and adverbial formal subtypes of the initial constituent, and the evaluative, epistemic modal and the expression of the speaker's psychological state functional subtypes, which can be grouped into a larger domain, here called modal-evaluative. Based on the Construction Grammar tools, it is proposed in this project to formulate a constructional network interrelating the different formal and functional subtypes of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) SICs found in a corpus of [X + que-clause] SICs, collected in previous work (COIMBRA, 2020) from the Web/Dialects module of Corpus do Português (DAVIES, 2016-). It is also intended to discuss the belonging of the instances of different funtional subtypes to the modal-evaluative domain and the extension of what fits into the term semi-insubordination among the new meanings and forms attested in BP. It is expected to contribute by this analysis to a better understanding of semi-insubordination and the expression of evaluative-modal meanings in BP and cross-linguistically. (AU)