13th ICFG 2008
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Abstracts
13th International Conference on Functional Grammar

Adverbial conjunctions: on the lexical/grammatical novel
Taísa Peres de Oliveira,
Universidade Estadual Paulista, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil


It has been claimed that adverbial conjunctions, or at least some, may join the FDG category of predicates. The work witnessed in Pérez Quintero (2004, 2006), Hengeveld and Wanders (2007), and Oliveira (2008) has developed the notion of lexical conjunctions analyzed by the means of an Adpositional predicate. Given the lexical status of conjunctions, one question still remains: which conjunctions are lexical or grammatical. In this sense, if we do recognize that some languages may have a set of lexical conjunctions, we still need to elaborate on the set of criteria used to separate the two categories. Taking Keizer (2007) paper on lexical/grammatical distinction, I analyze the whole class of adverbial conjunctions on Brazilian Portuguese in order to (i) test the criteria proposed by Keizer and (ii) verify where to place the cut for conjunctions on this language. The main hypothesis underlying this paper is that FDG provides two main criteria to be used in order to provide the lexical/grammatical distinction for words: (i) ascriptive function and (ii) meaning definition. A secondary hypothesis is that BP provides a set of lexical conjunctions and a smaller one of grammatical conjunctions to cover each adverbial relation. Thus, when the criteria are applied to Brazilian Portuguese, they show that this language does dispose of a wide set of lexical conjunctions, which do lexically specify the relation between two clauses, and a smaller one, formed of abstract grammatical conjunctions, that indicates the kind of semantic relation holds between two clauses.
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References:
  • Hengeveld, K. & G. Wanders, 2007. Adverbial conjunctions in Functional Discourse Grammar. In: M. Hannay & G. Steen (eds.) The English clause: Usage and structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

  • Keizer, E. 2007. The lexical-grammatical dichotomy in FDG. Revista Alfa. Advances in Functional Discourse Grammar, v. 51, n. 2,  35-56.

  • Oliveira, T. P. 2008. Conjunções e orações condicionais no português do Brasil. (Doctoral Thesis), UNESP, Araraquara.

  • Pérez Quintero, Mª J.  2004. Adpositions in FG: Has this Cinderella been Invited to the Ball? Words in Their Places: Festschrift for J. Lachlan Mackenzie. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, pp. 153-168.

  • Pérez Quintero, Mª J. 2006. On the Lexical/Grammatical Status of Adverbial Conjunctions in FDG. Oliva, J.I., McMahon, M. & M. Brito (eds.) On the Matter of Words: In Honor of Lourdes Divasson Cilveti. La Laguna: Servicio de Publicaciones,  329-339.


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