The additive assimilative construction in a constructionist view of grammar
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18364/rc.2025n68.1430Keywords:
Portuguese language, Additive assimilative construction, Construction GrammarAbstract
In this paper, based on the Constructionist Approach to Usage-Based Grammar (Goldberg, 1995, 2006, 2013; Croft, 2001; Traugott & Trousdale, 2013 among others), we investigate the contexts of use of the microconstructions ‘assim como’, ‘bem como’ and ‘tal como’ in Brazilian Portuguese. In doing so, we demonstrated that these micro-constructions have a comparative and additive meaning and are called additive assimilative constructions (cf. Siqueira, 2022). From a synchronic perspective, we used the Now Corpus, a subsample of the Corpus do Português, to analyze 289 occurrences of use in the written modality, from 2012 to 2018. The general results indicate the occurrence of two discursive-functional functions: (i) sequencing - in which elements are linked in addition to some previously presented information, with ‘bem como’ being the microconstruction that most instantiated this use and (ii) exemplification - by instantiating elements with the function of exemplifying previously presented information, with a higher frequency of ‘tal como’.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Marcos Luiz Wiedemer Wiedemer, Evelyn Moraes de Siqueira
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