A construção superlativa sintética de estados absolutos com o sufixo –íssimo: um caso de desencontro/ mismatch morfológico

Abstract

Assuming the sociocognitive and constructionist perspective taken by Cognitive Linguistic (LAKOFF, 1987, 1993; JOHNSON, 1987; LAKOFF & JOHNSON, 1980[2002], 1999; SALOMÃO, 1999, 2009a, MIRANDA, 1999; CROFT & CRUSE, 2004; SILVA, 1997) and by the Models of Use from the Construction Grammar (GOLDBERG, 1995, 2006; CROFT & CRUSE, 2004; SALOMÃO, 2009b; MIRANDA, 2008b, TRAUGOTT, 1995), this work aims at investigating one of the net nodules of the Superlative Constructions in Portuguese, here referred as the Superlative Synthetic Construction of Absolute States (SSCAS). It is a morphological construction built from the integration of a chore which refers to a non-gradable absolute state (desempregada,casada,grávida) with a superlative scale operator ( - íssimo/a). The result of this integration are types such as: desempregadíssima, casadíssima,gravidíssima,formadíssima. The methodological choice, derived from Cognitive Linguistic engagement to empiricism, led to the search on natural corpora. In this approach, there was built a specific corpus of this construction based on real and spontaneous data of linguistic use, verified by the electronic concordancer Web Concordancer beta - http://webascorpus.org/searchwac.html. Our corpus is made of 8.189.656 words in which 30 types were investigated and 1757 tokens were recorded. The configuration of SSCAS points to the mismatch phenomenon (FRANCIS & MICHAELIS, 2000; TRAUGOTT, 2007; TRAUGOTT, 2006), due to the fact that it makes clear the incompatibilities between the formal-semantic properties of the units which integrate this pattern – the superlative affix –íssimo – and the lexical item graduated by it. The incompatibility of this construction is approached from the polar relations of contrariety and contradiction, as they were describe by Israel (2004). Assuming the hypothesis that SSCAS is a construction, we propose the description of its formal and semantic-pragmatic poles to be the main analytical task in this work. As concerns the formal aspects, there were described three constructional patterns in the SSCAS, defined by Adjective, Nouns and Adverbs chores. The major formal pattern (76,5%) is made of deverbal participle radical (casado, namorado, eleito, comprador…). As concerns the SSCAS Semantic, we aimed at revealing the frames/conceptual scenes which are related to the types and recover the new outline given to these scenes. Therefore, we assess the presence of two tipes of outline in the SSCAS contexts: (i) Outline of Features; ii. Outline by Contradiction. The configuration of the discourse habitat of SSCAS, characterized by the informality, was pointed out by three categories for analysis of the source: (i) main thematic; (ii) discourse genres; (iii) target. Our analysis got to consolidate the initial hypothesis that SSCAS is built as a constructional pattern for a specific use within the Superlative Construction network in Portuguese. Its productivity was attested as well as its conventionalization process of some of its types in the informal discourse surroundings in the Portuguese from Brazil.