Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: RAYANE PONTES BARBALHO

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : RAYANE PONTES BARBALHO
DATE: 08/07/2026
TIME: 10:00
LOCAL: Google Meet
TITLE:

The performative-evaluative degree microconstruction: variation and Emergence in clauses with the verb entregar and an intensifier

KEY WORDS:

Usage-Based Functional Linguistics. Grammar Construction. Performative evaluative degree microconstruction. Verb entregar.

PAGES: 166
BIG AREA: Lingüística, Letras e Artes
AREA: Lingüística
SUBÁREA: Teoria e Análise Lingüística
SUMMARY:

This study describes the emergence, in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), of a new constructional pairing called the performative evaluative degree microconstruction. This pairing can be represented by the schema [[Xqualified thing Ventregar (ADVint)]Perform eval.degree]. The microconstruction licenses monoargumental clauses with the verb entregar (to deliver), frequently associated with an intensifying adverb, as in:: “mitski arrombou os portões de minhas expectativas, ela entregou demais tem presença demais foi maravilhosa a experiência te amo mitski” (X, 2022, written data). In this context, the expression entregou demais performs a positive evaluative assessment of the entity referred to by the subject, highlighting the quality of their performance in the event. The study stems from the scarcity of descriptions concerning uses of the verb entregar in constructions that diverge from its prototypical ditransitive argument structure, traditionally associated with the presence of direct and indirect objects (Borba, 2002), as well as from its referential transfer meaning (Cunha; Mello Sobrinho, 1986). Therefore, the study aims to examine monoargumental clauses containing the verb entregar accompanied by an adverbial intensifier, in order to identify possible (intra)contextual gradience processes related to the emergence and constructionality of a new performative evaluative pattern in BP. The research is theoretically and methodologically grounded in Usage-Based Functional Linguistics (Furtado da Cunha; Bispo; Silva, 2013) and is characterized as synchronic, descriptive-explanatory (Gil, 1999), and quali-quantitative in nature (Lacerda, 2016; Creswell, 2007). The methodological procedure consists of analyzing formal and semantic properties of constructs, based on Croft (2001), using empirical language-use data. The corpora comprise 400 tokens, including 200 spoken and 200 written occurrences. The analyzed data point to a semantic-constructional reconfiguration in which the verb, licensed by the constructional pattern, comes to express performative evaluation and qualitative intensification. The results indicate gradience in the semantic pole, outlining a continuum that ranges from the prototypical transfer meaning to a performative-evaluative reading. Processes of reduction and integration were also observed at the morphosyntactic and prosodic-phonetic levels, evidenced through acoustic analyses carried out using PRAAT software. Based on the changes identified in the form and function poles, it is argued that such occurrences signal the emergence of a performative evaluative degree microconstruction, resulting from successive neoanalyses (Traugott; Trousdale, 2013), motivated by domain-general cognitive processes (Bybee, 2016) and by mechanisms of contextual and semantic reconfiguration.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1393548 - NEDJA LIMA DE LUCENA
Interno - 1551756 - EDVALDO BALDUINO BISPO
Externo à Instituição - IVO DA COSTA DO ROSÁRIO - UFF