Constructicografia multilíngue da flexão verbal: uma abordagem construcionista contrastiva para tempo, modo e aspecto em português e espanhol

Abstract

This work presents the modeling of tense, aspect, and mood (TAM) constructions in Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish from a contrastive constructionist perspective. The goal is to contribute to both the development of the FrameNet Brasil Constructicon (Torrent et al.., 2018) and the MoCCA initiative — Model of Comparative Concepts for Aligning Constructicons (Almeida et al.., 2024). Grounded in the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics, the study draws on Frame Semantics (Fillmore, 1982) and Berkeley Construction Grammar (Kay; Fillmore, 1999), following the analytical methodology adopted by FrameNet Brasil. Furthermore, the research incorporates Croft’s (2022) notion of Comparative Concepts to inform its contrastive approach. The methodology combines: (a) a review of how TAM constructions are addressed in descriptive and contrastive studies found in reference grammars and pedagogical materials for both languages; (b) the identification of translation correspondences between TAM constructions using aligned bilingual corpora; and (c) the computational modeling of these constructions. Due to the need to delimit the scope of the research to fit within the timeframe of a doctoral program, the study focuses exclusively on indicative mood TAM constructions, encompassing both simple tense inflectional forms and auxiliary tense constructions. In total, 53 constructions were modeled — 27 in Portuguese and 26 in Spanish. For Portuguese, 8 TAM constructions and 19 additional constructions (necessary to define the components of the TAM structures) were modeled. For Spanish, the modeling included 7 TAM constructions and 19 additional constructions. The contrastive analysis applies the methodology proposed by Laviola et al. (forthcoming), which calculates cosine similarity between the modeled constructions. This quantitative approach is supplemented by a corpus-based contrastive study aimed at investigating whether formal and functional distinctions among constructions of the same type in each language, as defined in the modeling, correlate with stronger or weaker cross-linguistic correspondences. Findings suggest that the incorporation of Comparative Concepts into the modeling process yields promising results in capturing both similarities and divergences between TAM constructions in Portuguese and Spanish. Moreover, the data indicate that corpus-based contrastive studies must account for a range of contextual factors, as these are essential to accurately interpret the degree of similarity or, more critically, the divergences between constructions across languages.