Resumen:
| Título | Consecutive sentences in European portuguese: a quantificational approach. |
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| Autores y afiliación | Leal, António; Luís Filipe Cunha, y Purificaçao Silvano Centre of Linguistics of the University of Porto Via Panorâmica, s/n 4150-564 Porto António Leal antonio_leal@iol.pt Luís Filipe Cunha luisfilipeleitecunha@gmail.com Purificação Silvano puri_silvano@hotmail.com |
| Resumen | The sentences with consecutive clauses have been a controversial topic because not only their
syntactic status but also their semantic interpretation are confronted with many problems which give rise
to different analysis. The scrutiny of several grammar books and studies concerning this matter in
different Romance languages such as European Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian clearly shows the
absence of a unified approach to this linguistic phenomenon. Our aim in this paper is to propose a semantic analysis of finite subordinate consecutive sentences in European Portuguese grounded on quantificational issues. Firstly, we will look over the treatment of consecutive sentences in some grammar books of the languages already mentioned. Secondly, we will focus our attention on some ‘triggers’ of consecutive structures like tanto (‘so much/ so many’), tão (‘so’), cada (‘such’), um (‘a’), um tal (‘such a’) and tal (‘such’) and on possible semantic readings. Finally, we will present our semantic proposal of analysis for consecutive sentences in European Portuguese. As matter of fact, quantification in consecutive sentences plays a very important role regarding their interpretation. The data suggest the existence of three different types of quantificational consecutive sentences corresponding to quantification over individuals (objects), quantification over situations and quantification over properties. This tripartition helps to explain some relevant restrictions related to the sort of linguistic ‘triggers’ of consecutive structures and, in some cases, related to the classes of words that can occur with these, to the nature of aspectual classes of situations of the main clause and to the type of nominal predicates involved in the quantification. |
| Palabras clave | finite subordinate consecutive sentences, semantic proposal, quantificational analysis |
| Artículo completo | Consecutive sentences in European portuguese: a quantificational approach. |