12. The Portugese inflected infinitive and its conceptual basis

Augusto Soares da Silva | Catholic University of Braga

This paper offers a conceptual analysis of the Portuguese inflected (or personal) infinitive. The analysis makes use of a few concepts of Cognitive Grammar. The inflected infinitive is described as an objective construal of the main participant of a process type. This conceptual import is consistent with the grammatical behavior of the inflected infinitive. After giving an overview of the structural properties of the inflected infinitive in modern Portuguese, the paper will describe the continuum of event asymmetry in which the inflected infinitival clause holds an intermediate position between the subordinate finite clause and the infinitival clause. The meaning of the inflected infinitive is therefore characterized by imagery dimensions that are specific to subordinate constructions, namely independence, specificity, grounding, prominence and objectivity/subjectivity. Finally, some aspects relating to the distribution of inflected infinitival (complement, adverbial and subject) clauses will be analyzed in terms of semantic compatibility.

Keywords: adjunct clause, adverbial clause, adverbial constructions, causation, causative and perception verbs, clausal grounding, Cognitive Grammar, complement clause, declarative and epistemic verbs, event asymmetry, event integration/asymmetry, factive verbs, finite construction, grounding, imagery, impersonal constructions, indicative/subjunctive alternation, inflected infinitival construction, inflected infinitive, Langacker, modal verbs, nominal grounding, nominalization, objective construal, person category, Portuguese, sequential scanning, subject clause, subjectification, subjective construal, summary scanning, Though Raising construction, uninflected infinitival construction, viewing arrangement, volition verbs, word order

Published online: 15 May 2008
https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.11.15sil

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Rivas, Javier & Esther L. Brown

2021. O infinitivo flexionado en galego: unha análise variacionista baseada na lingua oral. Estudos de Lingüística Galega ► pp. 1 ff.

Vesterinen, Rainer

2014. Impersonals with ser (‘to be’) and the dominion of effective control. Language Sciences 41 ► pp. 143 ff.

Álvarez de la Granja, María

2020. El infinitivo flexionado en el Corpus de textos galegos escritos por estudantes no ámbito académico (CORTEGAL). Madrygal. Revista de Estudios Gallegos 23 ► pp. 15 ff.

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