TY - JOUR
T1 - The diachronic path of achar in Portuguese
T2 - from a propositional to an epistemic verb
AU - Pinto, Clara
N1 - info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UIDB%2F03213%2F2020/PT#
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/6817 - DCRRNI ID/UIDP%2F03213%2F2020/PT#
UIDB/03213/2020
UIDP/03213/2020
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - In this article I investigate the diachronic path of the Portuguese verb achar ‘to find/consider’, from a main propositional verb (in the sense of Traugott 1989), in earlier stages of the language, to a verb with epistemic reading, which is the default interpretation in Contemporary European Portuguese (CEP). Based on a sample corpus of texts comprehended between the 13th and the 17th century, I have concluded that the epistemic reading of achar was incipient until the 16th century, despite the existence of a few examples in the 13th century. This grammaticalization process seems to be recent in the language since epistemic readings remain infrequent until the 17th century and I did not find parenthetical uses in the corpus. Nevertheless, data under analysis allowed me to identify two possible syntactic contexts that may have favoured the semantic change: complement clauses and transitive-predicative constructions. The evolution of achar ‘to find/consider’ seems to follow the pattern of semantic change proposed by Traugott (1989) and Traugott/Dasher (2002) under the notion of subjectification, with achar starting with an objective meaning and later acquiring an epistemic reading, following the assumption that meanings tend to become centered in the subjective belief or attitude of the speaker.
AB - In this article I investigate the diachronic path of the Portuguese verb achar ‘to find/consider’, from a main propositional verb (in the sense of Traugott 1989), in earlier stages of the language, to a verb with epistemic reading, which is the default interpretation in Contemporary European Portuguese (CEP). Based on a sample corpus of texts comprehended between the 13th and the 17th century, I have concluded that the epistemic reading of achar was incipient until the 16th century, despite the existence of a few examples in the 13th century. This grammaticalization process seems to be recent in the language since epistemic readings remain infrequent until the 17th century and I did not find parenthetical uses in the corpus. Nevertheless, data under analysis allowed me to identify two possible syntactic contexts that may have favoured the semantic change: complement clauses and transitive-predicative constructions. The evolution of achar ‘to find/consider’ seems to follow the pattern of semantic change proposed by Traugott (1989) and Traugott/Dasher (2002) under the notion of subjectification, with achar starting with an objective meaning and later acquiring an epistemic reading, following the assumption that meanings tend to become centered in the subjective belief or attitude of the speaker.
KW - Diachrony
KW - Epistemic verbs
KW - Grammaticalization
KW - Old Portuguese
KW - Semantic change
KW - Subjectification
UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85164482191&doi=10.1515%2fzrp-2023-0017&origin=inward&txGid=d3e66ad14d843f8b400c3f3723a3caa6
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1515/zrp-2023-0017
DO - https://doi.org/10.1515/zrp-2023-0017
M3 - Article
SN - 1865-9063
VL - 139
SP - 479
EP - 505
JO - Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie
JF - Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie
IS - 2
ER -