A construção modal ‘vai que’ no português brasileiro
This paper discusses the modal construction ‘vai que’ from Brazilian Portuguese. Our goal is to analyze its syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. This construction is used when the speaker wants to convey that something is possible, thus, it is a modal construction. Our analysis follows propos...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Portuguese |
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Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Revista Linguística |
| Online Access: | https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/rl/article/view/65263 |
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| _version_ | 1850180113240424448 |
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| author | Luiz Fernando Ferreira Núbia Rech |
| author_facet | Luiz Fernando Ferreira Núbia Rech |
| author_sort | Luiz Fernando Ferreira |
| collection | DOAJ |
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This paper discusses the modal construction ‘vai que’ from Brazilian Portuguese. Our goal is to analyze its syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. This construction is used when the speaker wants to convey that something is possible, thus, it is a modal construction. Our analysis follows proposals from cartographic syntax (Cinque, 1999; Tsai, 2015; Rizzi; Bocci, 2017), formal semantics (Kratzer, 1991; von Fintel, 2006; Hacquard, 2006, 2010, 2011) and formal pragmatics (Stalnaker, 1999; Portner, 2004). Previous analyses of ‘vai que’ have argued that it is: (i) weak; (ii) epistemic; (iii) conditional like; (iv) counterfactual; (v) high in the hierarchy; and (vi) a directive speech act (see Andrade, 2012, 2014, 2019; Dearmas, 2022, 2024; Ely and Cezário, 2023a, 2023b). We agree that it is a weak epistemic modal based on paraphrasis and contradiction tests (von Fintel; Heim, 2011), but we argue that ‘vai que’ is not part of a conditional structure, it does not convey counterfactuality, it is not higher than the epistemic modal head in the functional hierarchy, and it is also not a directive speech act. In our analysis, ‘vai que’ accesses the speaker’s beliefs through the speech event, following Hacquard (2006, 2010), and it presupposes another proposition in the common ground working as a justification for it.
Keywords: ‘Vai que’. Modality. Speech act. Formal semantics. Cartographic syntax.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-7cb080b1784a47dc9cbbefaae2bfe2ed |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1808-835X 2238-975X |
| language | Portuguese |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Revista Linguística |
| spelling | doaj-art-7cb080b1784a47dc9cbbefaae2bfe2ed2025-08-20T02:18:19ZporUniversidade Federal do Rio de JaneiroRevista Linguística1808-835X2238-975X2024-12-0120310.31513/linguistica.2024.v20n3a6526348320A construção modal ‘vai que’ no português brasileiroLuiz Fernando Ferreira0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7120-0171Núbia Rech1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9278-2702Universidade Federal de Roraima (UFRR)Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) This paper discusses the modal construction ‘vai que’ from Brazilian Portuguese. Our goal is to analyze its syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. This construction is used when the speaker wants to convey that something is possible, thus, it is a modal construction. Our analysis follows proposals from cartographic syntax (Cinque, 1999; Tsai, 2015; Rizzi; Bocci, 2017), formal semantics (Kratzer, 1991; von Fintel, 2006; Hacquard, 2006, 2010, 2011) and formal pragmatics (Stalnaker, 1999; Portner, 2004). Previous analyses of ‘vai que’ have argued that it is: (i) weak; (ii) epistemic; (iii) conditional like; (iv) counterfactual; (v) high in the hierarchy; and (vi) a directive speech act (see Andrade, 2012, 2014, 2019; Dearmas, 2022, 2024; Ely and Cezário, 2023a, 2023b). We agree that it is a weak epistemic modal based on paraphrasis and contradiction tests (von Fintel; Heim, 2011), but we argue that ‘vai que’ is not part of a conditional structure, it does not convey counterfactuality, it is not higher than the epistemic modal head in the functional hierarchy, and it is also not a directive speech act. In our analysis, ‘vai que’ accesses the speaker’s beliefs through the speech event, following Hacquard (2006, 2010), and it presupposes another proposition in the common ground working as a justification for it. Keywords: ‘Vai que’. Modality. Speech act. Formal semantics. Cartographic syntax. https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/rl/article/view/65263 |
| spellingShingle | Luiz Fernando Ferreira Núbia Rech A construção modal ‘vai que’ no português brasileiro Revista Linguística |
| title | A construção modal ‘vai que’ no português brasileiro |
| title_full | A construção modal ‘vai que’ no português brasileiro |
| title_fullStr | A construção modal ‘vai que’ no português brasileiro |
| title_full_unstemmed | A construção modal ‘vai que’ no português brasileiro |
| title_short | A construção modal ‘vai que’ no português brasileiro |
| title_sort | construcao modal vai que no portugues brasileiro |
| url | https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/rl/article/view/65263 |
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