Chapter 7. The comitative-copular basis of possessive-existential constructions in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This paper shows that some properties of possessive and existential sentences in Brazilian Portuguese can be properly explained if the possessive-existential verb ter 'have' is derived by the combination of the features associated with estar 'be' and the features corresponding to the comitative preposition com 'with'. I will concentrate on the following facts: (i) the thematic parallelism between ter-and estar com-clauses in possessive and existential domains; (ii) the restrict interpretation of null possessors in ter-constructions; and (iii) the emergence of ter as an existential verb in Brazilian Portuguese, but not in European Portuguese. * For helpful comments and suggestions, I would like to thank Jairo Nunes, Ana Claudia Bastos, Dinah Callou, and Margaret Anne Clarke. The results presented here are part of two research projects financed by FAPESP (grants 2006/03852-4 and 2006/00965-2).

A distinct aspectual analysis of predicative possession in Brazilian Portuguese

“…This reveals that, in the presence of significant contextual support, in this case, a temporally limiting adverb, ter NP becomes more compatible with a more immediate (or what has been called "temporary" in prior research) reading, in much the same way that a simple present form in Spanish becomes more compatible with an ongoing verbal situation with rich contextual support ). What we might conclude from this result is that the default interpretation for ter NP is of a possessive situation that extends in time beyond the reference interval, much like an imperfective aspectual marker does; but when co-occurring in a context with a limiting adverb the interval of ter NP can be interpreted without contradiction as co-terminous with the reference interval, again illustrating that the meaning of "permanence" attributed to ter NP in prior research (Avelar 2009a(Avelar , 2009bStolz et al 2008) is actually a conversational implicature, not a semantic entailment. 4 contextual features and the interpretation of the possessum.…”

“…Nevertheless, we took the Stolz et al (2008) typology of domains in Table 1 as a basis for constructing our survey methodology, reported below, in order to test these authors' claims. Avelar (2009aAvelar ( , 2009b is the most complete existing description and analysis of the contrast between ter NP and estar com NP in BP. Although not concentrating on the meanings of the two constructions, he makes the claim that "the semantic difference between estar com and ter can be characterized in aspectual terms" (2009a: 141).…”

“…These possessums included temporary states like fome 'hunger' or febre 'fever,' protoypical stage-level predicates (Kratzer 1995) that on the existing aspectual analyses (e.g. Avelar 2009aAvelar , 2009bStolz et al 2008) would not be predicted to occur with the purported permanent ter NP possessive construction (which ought to occur solely with individual-level predicates). The corpus data show moreover that the overall productivity of the two constructions is highly asymmetrical: ter NP had a type-token ratio of 0.55 (1632/2976), but estar com NP showed significantly lower productivity (0.41, 229/553) by a Pearson's chi-squared test (p<0.01).…”

Estar con/estar com: aspectos da posse e relações adjacentes

“…Se vertidas para o PB, construções com tener como as que se apresentam em 1 resultam em sentenças estranhas; em espanhol as sentenças com estar con acimaé que seriam as 'mal formadas', enquanto em português, nestes contextos, estar com seria a forma esperada na construção. A respeito da alternância ter /estar com em PB, discorre Avelar (2004Avelar ( ,2007 que reconhece entre as formas uma espécie de distribuição complementar: ao verbo possessivo caberia a expressão de posse permanente, eà composição 'cópula estativa+preposição comitativa', a expressão de posse transitória (Vide 1.3).…”

“…Neste capítulo apresentamos o referencial teórico que norteia a presente análise: os trabalhos de Viotti (1999) -e em espacial a análise que em seu estudo se realiza sobre as relações predicativas nas sentenças construídas ao redor do item lexical 1 ter -, e de Avelar (2004Avelar ( , 2007 cujos estudos dentre outras questões tratam sobre as diferenças aspectuais entre sentenças nucleadas por ter e estar com. Outro estudo que impulsiona o trabalho em apresentaçãoé o de Bosque (1996) a respeito dos nomes sem determinação em espanhol, especialmente a seção 2.2 (págs 49-56) de seu artigo, na qual o autor apresenta a idéia de um processo de incorporação léxica entre preposições e sintagmas nominais (SNs) sem determinação: de acordo com o autor uma sequência 'preposição + SN sem determinante' equivaleria a um predicado complexo e uno, capaz de desempenhar na sentença uma função semelhantè a de um adjetivo ou advérbio.…”