CONSTRUCTIONS WITH SUPPORT VERBS: GRAMMATICAL AND DISCURSIVE PROPERTIES

This text aims to present evidences from a corpus study of constructions with the support verbs dar and fazer from Brazilian Portuguese and to discuss the discursive function that underlies support verb constructions. There is the argument that the grammaticalization process of these constructions is related to their pragmatic value. The functionalist assumption that grammar is related to language functional demands is taken on. The study presents one hundred constructions which were the most frequent in the corpus and the most common morphosyntatic variations showed by these constructions, such as the use of determinants and number and degree noun variations. Lastly, some examples of sentences from the corpus are commented in order to demonstrate how the use of support verb constructions instead of full verbs can cause certain discursive effects. The text also attempts to show how the morphosyntatic variations can influence the construction of a different meaning.