Gramaticalização do verbo esperar: uma abordagem funcionalista

Abstract

The present work describes the synchronic and diachronic uses of the verb “esperar” in the Portuguese language, by assuming the hypothesis that the new grammaticalized uses would reveal an increasing way of (inter)subjectification (FINEGAN, 1995; TRAUGOTT, 1995; TRAUGOTT & DASHER 2005; DAVIDSE, VANDELANOTTE & CUYCKENS, 2010). And it also assumes that this process would be related to the emergence of possible constructional patterns (TRAUGOTT, 2003, 2008, 2009). In order to prove these hypotheses, we also accomplished a diachronic survey that tried to demonstrate, more appropriately, which uses would be earlier and [- (inter)subjective]. The synchronic data cover both the oral and written modalities. The oral data have been collected in three different corpora: the corpus of the “Projeto Mineirês: a construção de um dialeto”, the corpus of “PEUL - Programa de Estudos sobre o Uso da Língua” and the corpus of “NURC/RJ - Projeto da Norma Urbana Oral Culta do Rio de Janeiro”. The diachronic corpora were composed of written texts available on Internet, taken from blogs and magazines of wide national circulation (“Veja”, “Isto É”, “Época”, “Caras”, “Cláudia” e “Ana Maria”). The diachronic data, in its turn, were selected from the corpus of “CIPM – Corpus Informatizado do Português Medieval” and the corpus of “Tycho Brahe” project. In data analysis, we described the different uses of the verb “esperar”, as well as its possible constructional patterns. Moreover, we considered the distribution and use frequency of the verb “esperar”, since we assume that frequency can be an important tool to define processes of grammaticalization (BYBEE, 2003).The results indicate that the verb “esperar”, in the Portuguese language, came from the earlier and [- subjective] meaning of "waiting time" and developed the [+ subjective] uses of "volition" and "have expectations/counterexpectations”. In this process, the verb “esperar” restricts the durative aspect, which characterizes its original meaning. As a volitive verb, “esperar” acts as a modal verb, expressing an idea of future and, in its turn, when it presents the notion of expectation/counterexpectation, it indicates speaker’s hypothetical beliefs. As we could verify, the verb “esperar” can also appear in other constructions, such as the construction “espera aí/peraí”, which, among different functions, is presented as a discourse marker, revealing an [+ intersubjective] use of the verb.