A volição presente no verbo quaero: um estudo a partir de peças de Plauto e de Sêneca

Abstract

The present work is part of the line of research “Language and Humanities” of the Graduate Program in Linguistics at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) and aims to investigate the presence of volition in the Latin verb quaero, predecessor of the verb querer, which in Portuguese and in Spanish represents the prototypical verb of volition. In order to conduct the research, we made use of a functionalist perspective in Linguistic, in such a way that the analyzed data are inserted in their contexts of use, since the language represents knowledge interdependent upon the situation in which it occurs. Thus, we aim to understand the volitional semantics of the Latin verb quaero, which notwithstanding is not commonly acknowledged as a volitional verb in Latin grammars. Based on the fact that in Portuguese and in Spanish the verb querer serves the purpose of the prototypical verb for expressing volition, we intend to verify whether quaero presented the sense of volition in Latin texts by authors of different periods, namely: Plautus, through the study of occurrences in the plays Stichus and Amphitryon; Seneca, with Troades and Medea. We intend to qualitatively analyze the discursive context of the occurrences of the verb quaero in these works, as well as its morphosyntactic behavior in order to verify the presence of the sense of volition associated with this verb in such contexts and describe what factors contribute to this. Results indicate that the verb quaero in the selected works presents volitional semantics that permeate the discursive context of the scene. Although we acknowledge the limitations of the data found, these ample volitional semantics present in the scenes contribute to the volitional use of the verb quaero.