Functional spectrum of bem (well) and bom (good) in spoken portuguese: instances of grammaticalization

• Autor(a) principal: Gorski, Edair Maria
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista da ABRALIN (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revista.abralin.org/index.php/abralin/article/view/1710
• topic: VARSUL; Contextos dialógicos; Multifuncionalidade; Bem e bom; Gramaticalização; VARSUL; Dialogical contexts; Multifunctionality; Bem (well) and bom (good); Grammaticalization

In a functionalist approach to grammar (cf. GIVÓN, 2001; 2018), the work aims (i) to present a qualitative and quantitative description of the range of functions performed by bem (well) and bom (good), considering both the prototypical grammatical status of adverb and adjective, respectively, as for the discursive uses as markers and other possible uses, from the examination of dialogical contexts in 72 sociolinguistic interviews (VARSUL Project); (ii) to treat comparatively the discursive uses, seeking contextual patterns of behavior; and (iii) to analyze the changes involved such as instances of grammaticalization (cf. HIMMELMANN, 2004; TRAUGOTT, 2010a; DIEWALD (2011b). Among the results we highlight: (i) in terms of frequency, the adverbial use of bem is greater than the adjetival use of bom; as a discourse marker, bom is more widely used than bem; and in other uses, bem presents a more polysemic behavior than bom; (ii) as discourse markers, the items share a general textual / interpersonal property and they signal a double movement (of discursive structuring and negotiation), with significant occurrence introducing immediate responses, but they present contextual specificities of use: while bom predominates in opening shifts, introducing particularly preamble, bem prevails in intraturn positions, in contexts of topical organization, especially of sequencing and resuming the discursive flow, focusing on the informant's own speech; (iii) the markers present different contextual patterns in the informant's speech and in the interviewer's speech. It is concluded that the functioning of the items is dependent on the type of communicative situation and the need for the analysis to consider textual / discursive genres and their particularities is pointed out, especially in comparative studies.