A construção passiva adjetival em português brasileiro

Abstract

This thesis presents a study on adjectival passive construction (AP) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), which can be understood as a half-filled clause pattern, whose form is [SN Vficar/estar + Participle (with SN)]. In other words, the adjectival passive is a language construction that can be instantiated with the verbs ficar and estar, followed by a participle form with the value of an adjective. Bearing in mind that not all the participles available in BP are semantically compatible with the AP, and, furthermore, not every participle that instantiates the adjectival passive is compatible with the verbal passive, the following questions are asked: (i) what is the function and meaning associated with the adjectival passive construction?; (ii) what is the relationship between the adjectival passive and the verbal passive? Hypothetically, some types of events or semantic frames do not occur in the verbal passive because their occurrence in the adjectival passive is much more frequent in the language. Thus, the use of adjectival passive construction is motivated and it is possible that verbal passive and adjectival passive are in complementary distribution in the language. The main purpose of this investigation is to understand the use of this construction in light of the theoretical assumptions of Usage-Based Linguistics and Goldberg's Construction Grammar. As minor objectives, this research (i) describes the functional aspects associated with the adjectival passive construction form through corpus analysis; (ii) analyze the frequencies of occurrence of the adjectival passive construction; and, finally, (iii) verifies whether the adjectival passive and verbal passive constructions are in complementary distribution for certain types of events or semantic frames. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, it was necessary to collect data in “Corpus do Português: NOW” (2012-2019), by Mark Davies, using the AP clause pattern, in order to verify the frequency of occurrence of this construction. Furthermore, a search for semantic frames in “The Berkeley FrameNet” database was carried out in order to describe the semantics of the participles instantiated by the AP, since the participles inherit the frames of their corresponding verbs. Based on data analysis, it was possible to describe the meaning and function associated with the adjectival passive construction, above all, explain why the AP occurs with participles that, in theory, do not occur with the verbal passive. In summary, the results presented show that AP is a construction endowed with its own form and meaning and its use is motivated in the language.