Flávia Hirata-Vale, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos, Brazil 
Erotilde Goreti Pezatti, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil 
Roberto Gomes Camacho, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil 
Eli Nazareth Bechara, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto,Brazil 
Ana Maria Comparini, UNESP / UNIFRAN, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil 
JoceliCatarina Stassi, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil 
Lisângela Guiraldelli, UNESP / FFCL, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil  
Norma Barbosa Novaes, UNESP / UNICERES, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil 
Taísa Peres de Oliveira, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos,Brazil 
Talita Storti Garcia, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil


Inspired by Keizer (2004, 2007), this paper deals with the lexical-grammatical distinction within FDG and its consequences for the description of Brazilian Portuguese adpositional system. Keizer (2007) points out that FG (Dik, 1997) makes a sharp distinction between lexical and grammatical elements in the structure of linguistic expressions. Although in FDG (Hengeveld & Mackenzie, 2008.) the lexical-grammatical distinction is sustained, some ideas concerning the categorial status of these lexical and grammatical elements are been reconsidered (Keizer, 2004, 2007; Hengeveld & Wanders, 2007). Our primary goal is to make a semantic cognitive description of the so called essential prepositions in Brazilian Portuguese. We also intend to contribute for the debate about the boundaries between lexicon and grammar and the treatment of parts of speech within Functional Discourse Grammar.

In the analysis of the adpositional system in Brazilian Portuguese, we consider that four spatial schemes organize the different linguistic expression uses, which basically situates one element in relation to another (cf. Ilari et al, forth.). The three first schemes select distinctively spatial coordinates, horizontally (dislocation in a path: origin de, desde; medial por; goal a, para, até, contra), vertically (superior sobre and inferior sob levels) and transversally (anteriority ante and posteriority após). The fourth scheme concerns a spatial axis of comprehensiveness, and deals with the disposition in space: inside (em, com, entre) and outside (sem). It is worthy mentioning that some of these prepositions may integrate more than one of these axes. We postulate that the relevant representations for understanding prepositions derive from a spatial experience, following a unidirectional pathway as: spatial dimension > temporal dimension > notional dimension. The hypotheses that we intend to investigate is that the spatial dimension is more related to a lexical pole and the notional dimension to the more grammatical(ized) pole of prepositions. In order to fulfill the functional idea that grammar relies on the injunctions of the interpersonal and representational levels in FDG, a productive hypotheses is that prepositions which are at the more lexical pole of the gradience operate as adjunctives whereas prepositions that are situated at the less lexical pole function as complements. We therefore may observe a peculiar linguistic behavior of these elements: when they are in adjunction they constitute prepositions, heading a syntactic construction; when they purely function as a relational unit, they behave as postpositions, placed after the nucleus (verbal, nominal or adjectival).