“Mas quem ia carregar uma nota fiscal?”: an investigation on the modal function of mas in portuguese

• Autor(a) principal: Aquino, Marceli Cherchiglia
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Cinto, Ana Laura Macruz, Kahil, Tamires Arnal
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Confluência
• Texto Completo: https://revistaconfluencia.org.br/rc/article/view/414
• topic: modal words in Portuguese; mas as modal particle; contrastive analysis.; palavras modais em língua portuguesa; a partícula modal mas; análises contrastivas.

In this work, a preliminary investigation regarding the classification of mas (but) as a modal particle (MP) in Brazilian Portuguese is presented. Our main purpose is to pose hypotheses concerning the modal function of the MP mas, aiming to identify the semantic and pragmatic differences of this modal word from its non-modal homonym, the adversative conjunction. To support our study, we performed a contrastive investigation with German, where MPs have a homogenous categorization. In particular, we adopted authentic contexts of usage provided by comics in Brazilian Portuguese and German containing the MP mas, the conjunction mas and the German MP aber. This investigation allowed us to narrow down the modal function of the particle mas, emphasizing the importance of inclusive studies in order to identify a class of modal words in Brazilian Portuguese.