Parasynthetic verbs in Bento Pereira’s work

Abstract

This article presents some notes on the history of the Portuguese language in the 17th century and on the biography of the lexicographer Bento Pereira. From his work we select the “appendiz” Florilegio dos modos de fallar, e adagios da lingoa Portuguesa, edited in 1655 and divided into two parts: the first one, subtitled das frases portuguezas, a que correspondem as mais puras, é elegantes Latinas, como tiradas de Marco Tullio, & outros Authores de primeira classe; the second one records os principaes adagios portugueses, com seu latim prouerbial correspondente, pera se aiuntar a Prosodia, & Thesouro portugues, como appendiz, ou complemento (1655). Examples of parasynthetic verbs are analyzed, the morphological schemes constituted by the prepositions a-, des-, en-/em- and the suffixes -ar, -ecer are explained, with special reference to the noun or adjective which constitutes the basis of the derivation and from which the lexicographical definition is elaborated. Information is incorporated on the words with which they are combined, used in the examples chosen in this appendix of the main work of the Jesuit lexicographer, an undisputed authority in bilingual and meta-orthographic dictionaries. An Annex is attached to the References, as a synthetic vocabulary of the entries and articles taken from the work, with details of synonymy and other complementary information.