Idiomaticity in Construction Grammar: the counter-expectation construction with “bem” under a semantic-pragmatic analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18364/rc.2024n66.1360Keywords:
Idiomaticity, Bem, Construction GrammarAbstract
This study aims to investigate a particular idiom that occurs in some varieties of Brazilian Portuguese and is characterized by the presence of the item “bem” (lity ‘well’), as in “Eu bem vendi o colar que ela gostou” (literally, “I well sold the necklace that she liked”) and “Meu nariz bem sangrou” (literally, “My nose well bled”). In such sentences, meanings canonically associated with the item “bem” (such as manner, intensity or precision/focus) cannot be identified. In this paper, which relies on the framework of Usage Based Construction Grammar, it is argued that all sentences manifesting the non-canonical usage of ”bem” are instances of one single grammatical construction, which we call the Counter-expectation Construction with Bem (CCB). On an exploratory basis, a qualitative-interpretative analysis based on data from different corpora was conducted to generate a hypothesis regarding the semantic-pragmatic import of the construction. We propose that it is responsible for signaling counter-expectation and functions as a as a trigger of negative presupposition. To test this hypothesis, an offline forced-choice experiment was carried out comparing sentences with and without the CCB. The results provide significant evidence for this hypothesis.
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