A new look at the unproductivity of resultative constructions in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

Typical resultative constructions in English are unavailable in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and in Romance. This fact has been attributed by previous studies to different event-framings, following the Talmian view. English would illustrate the satellite-framing pattern, whereas Romance would illustrate the verb-framing pattern. Literature in BP has mainly focused on describing properties of different sentences similar to resultatives of the English type. A large part of the debate has been devoted to answering whether these can be classified as true resultatives. Much less attention has been dedicated to a proper description of the framing patterns in BP. This paper fills in this gap and, by doing so, argues that BP admits both framing patterns. The v-framing pattern is highly productive, exemplified by numerous complex parasynthetic verbs that entail a result. The s-framing pattern is marginal, illustrated by a small sample of modified resultatives and verb-particle constructions. This paper supports the framing analysis, but recasts its merits in light of new connections established among (apparent) resultatives in BP.