Productivity and Schematicity of Purpose Connectives in the History of Portuguese

Abstract

In this paper, from a diachronic point of view, we analyze some forms of conjunctive phrases that introduce final adverbial clauses in Portuguese. We adopt the theoretical model of Construction Grammar and, specifically, the proposal for the study of linguistic change from this perspective (TRAUGOTT; TROUSDALE, 2021). Our objective is to investigate how the productivity of the conjunctive phrases analyzed contributed to the consolidation, or weakening, of the subschema [prep (det) N de que] of modern Portuguese, licensed by the broader constructional scheme [Xque], proposed by Cezario, Silva and Santos (2015). We investigated texts from the 13th to the 20th centuries in Portuguese. The results reveal an increase in productivity and schematicity of the constructional pattern in relation to all the conjunctive phrases analyzed, but in different proportions and at different moments in the history of Portuguese. We conclude that the subscheme emerges and consolidates diachronically in Portuguese, but it is composed of more central and more peripheral members.