A expressão da mensagem em construções de elocução do português brasileiro

Abstract

Communication is a central phenomenon in human interaction and involves the transmission of messages between interlocutors. To describe such processes, we use different linguistic expressions, including verbs that presuppose saying, such as dizer (to say), contar (to tell), elogiar (to praise), and those that do not presuppose saying, such as brincar (to joke), as well as the constructions in which they occur. Such verbs and constructions evoke an ELOCUTION event, which refers to the verbalization of messages and information, involving a speaker/enunciator addressing a listener/interlocutor. In this dissertation, we explore the different forms of expression of the MESSAGE participant in ELOCUTION events in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). For example, in the Transitive Construction Ela contou uma história (She told a story), the MESSAGE is expressed by a noun phrase (NP), história (story); in Ela elogiou a história (She praised the story), with the verb elogiar (to praise), the MESSAGE is integrated into the verb (a compliment), while the NP história (story) assumes the role of TOPIC; in the Complement Clause Construction, such as Ela brincou que a história era muito infantil (She joked that the story was very childish), the MESSAGE is a complement clause introduced by a verb that does not presuppose saying, the verb brincar (to joke). Anchored in Construction Grammar, this research adopts as its theoretical-methodological foundation Croft's (2012, 2021) proposal on the dynamics of forces, reinforced by Kalm's (2022) contributions. The methodology involved analyzing 24 verbs, equally divided between those that presuppose saying and those that do not. These verbs were selected based on predefined criteria, and occurrences of the verbs in the constructions were extracted from the Corpus Brasileiro. Our results demonstrate that each construction profiles specific parts of the ELOCUTION event, composed of the participants: SPEAKER, MESSAGE, TOPIC, MEDIUM, and ADDRESS. From the analysis of each construction, we identified four main types of constructions that express ELOCUTION events: the Metaphorical Creation Construction, the Metaphorical Transfer Construction, the Metaphorical Contact Construction, and the Metaphorical Contiguity Construction. With these results, we conclude that the flexibility of the MESSAGE in having different forms of expression lies in the ability of this participant to align with different verb profiles and, consequently, different construals, including those of verbs that do not presuppose saying. These verbs, although presenting restrictions, integrate into the ELOCUTION constructions of BP: the verb profile of these verbs provides subevents associated with the SPEAKER, who is a participant endowed with a volitional nature, and this contributed to the adaptation of the MESSAGE expression.