TO SEE AS A MARKER OF CONTEXTUAL SALIENCE IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES: EVIDENCE FROM ACADIAN FRENCH AND BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses constructions found in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and Acadian French (AF), in which the equivalents of to see accompanies a second verb in imperative utterances. In these constructions in BP and AF to see emphasizes the command expressed by the other verb. The BP construction can also have an additional interpretation, in which vê ‘see_{IMPERATIVE,2,SINGULAR}’¹has the meaning ‘to verify’. It is proposed that BP constructions can be associated with two different structures. The constructions with the ‘to verify’ meaning are treated as biclausal structures in which the verb ver ‘to see’ selects for a CP headed by the complementizer se ‘if’. As for the analysis of the emphatic order meaning associated to the BP and AF constructions, we adopt the proposals put forth in Speas & Tenny (2003) and Hill (2007, 20 , 2014 ) according to which conversational pragmatics is encoded in syntax as a predicative structure (Speech Act Projection - SAP) above CP. Following these ideas, we analyze BP and AF emphatic order constructions as monoclausal structures, where vê in BP and voir in AF are injunctive pragmatic markers that are externally merged into the SA head in order to encode a pragmatic relation.

pragmatic marker; perception verbs; romance languages; grammaticalization; semantic bleaching