“O telefone tocô eu peguei e:: quem tá falano?” A polissemia do verbo pegar

Abstract

In this work we propose that the several meanings of the verb pegar, in Brazilian Portuguese, can be better understood if we take it as a polysemous verb. We claim that, through metaphoric extensions, other meanings can derive from the basic more concrete meaning of pegar. According to our hypothesis, there are notions of movement and container which are shared by the constructions with this verb. These constructions, in the present work, are categorized into groups such as: (a) lexical pegar group, composed by those verbs which follow the SV(O) order and bear meanings closely related to the more basic one; (b) discourse pegar group, composed by two different constructions in which the verb pegar is followed by another finite verb (either dicendi or not), inflected in the same mood and tense, and sharing the same subject and complement; (c) aspectual pegar group, in which the verb pegar is followed by an infinitive form and bears the notion of inception and of certain continuity of the action. We propose a schema in order both to organize our conclusions concerning the lexical pegar, the most relevant within the data collected, and to demonstrate the conceptual commonalities found amongst every construction with pegar. Furthermore, we will argue that, besides being highly productive in our language, pegar demonstrates how semantic change works and also how it is deeply related to the way human beings conceptualize the world they experience.