The expression of temporal information in (verb) argument structures in Portuguese
Telmo Móia – Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
[email protected]
In this presentation, I will discuss the semantic interpretation (and syntactic
restrictions) of constructions with verbs that take temporal expressions as arguments,
such as durar (‘last’), levar (‘take’), or remontar [a] (‘date back [to]’) in the following
examples:
(1) a. A discussão da proposta durou dois meses.
b. A resolução do problema levou menos de dois dias.
(2)
A construção da ponte remonta ao século II.
On the one hand, it must be noted that two different subsystems of temporal
information are involved – duration and temporal location, in (1) and (2), respectively
– and, on the other hand, that these constructions compete with others, conveying
similar information via adjunct (i.e. non-argument) phrases, such as those with durante
(‘for’), or em (‘in’) in the following examples:
(3) a. A proposta foi discutida durante dois meses.
b. O problema foi resolvido em menos de dois dias.
(4)
A ponte foi construída no século II.
We will observe that temporal verbs – exemplified in (1)-(2) – fall into different
semantic classes (e.g. (i) remontar, datar; (ii) ocorrer, ter lugar, suceder, situar-se,
verificar-se, dar-se, passar-se; (iii) durar, demorar, levar, prolongar-se vs. (iv) haver,
fazer). We will furthermore note that the behaviour of the different classes depends
on various grammatical features (e.g. Aktionsart properties, form of the relevant
argument,…), and correlates – though not in a simple biunivocal way – with semantic
distinctions in the adjunct system – exemplified in (3)-(4) –, where, according to
descriptions in the literature, duration is distinct from location, the latter being further
subdivided in modes of temporal location (durative, inclusive or merely overlapping).
The formal analyses of the relevant semantic distinctions will be made within the
framework of Discourse Representation Theory (cf. Kamp & Reyle 1993). Data is from
contemporary European Portuguese, including examples from electronic corpora.
References
Kamp, Hans & Uwe Reyle: 1993, From Discourse to Logic. Introduction to
Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and Discourse
Representation Theory, Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Móia, Telmo: in press, “Predicados Temporais e Gramaticalização em Português”,
presented to 9.º Congresso de Lusitanistas Alemães (9. Deutschen
Lusitanistentag), University of Vienna, Austria, Setember 14-17, 2011. To be
published by Martin Meidenbauer Verlag.
Móia, Telmo: 2011, “Sobre a Expressão Lexical da Duração e da Localização Temporal
em Português”, in Mathias Arden, Christian Märzhäuser e Benjamin Meisnitzer
(eds.), Linguística do Português. Rumos e Pontes, Sprache-Kultur-Gesellschaft 8,
München: Martin Meidenbauer Verlag, pp. 251-269.