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Eckhard Bick
PORTUGUESE SYNTAX
10. Utterance function
So far, we have defined
function relative to a constituent's head, with clause level constituents
"functionalized" by the clause's main verb. Subclauses are themselves constituents
and can be assigned a function tag by the same principles. But what about
clauses, groups or words that are not constituents, because they
themselves constitute the highest level of analysis?
The top node in a syntactic
tree, the sentence, derives its function from context and human interpretation,
i.e. from outside the realm of syntax proper. The string of words
making up the sentence becomes an utterance (UTT) ,
which will be our dummy function tag for the syntactic top node.
To a certain degree,
key words (interrogatives), mode (subjunctive, imperative) and punctuation
(., ? or !) can give a more specific indication of top level function.
Thus, with regard to the 4 functions to be distinguished here, full stops
indicate statements (STA), question marks indicate questions (QUE), and
exclamation marks indicate exclamations (EXC) or commands (COM):
-
Não ajuda. - (STA:fcl)
-
Quem te ajudou?
- (QUE:fcl)
-
Puxa! - (EXC:v-fin)
-
Cala a boca! - (COM:fcl)
However, this is not a
safe rule. Consider:
-
Ela é a maior fofoqueira
da cidade, sabe? - STA (QUE?)
-
Pode entrar. -
COM (STA?)
-
Pensei, se não
fosse inoportuno, em você me acompanhar ... - QUE (STA?)
-
Ah, mas que coisa
linda, quem imaginava! - EXC (QUE?)
In (a), a statement and
a "tag"-question have been fused, with the tag - sabe? - taking over
in terms of punctuation, in spite of the over-all statement function. In
(b), a command is camouflaged - for reasons of politeness - as a statement.
In (c), the question content of the utterance is only implied - again for
pragmatic reasons (politeness) -, by the subjunctive conditional subclause,
and therefore, the surface mark of question punctuation is missing. In
(d), though supported by an exclamation mark, the exclamation reading is
not global, since two interrogatives (que and quem are present, one
of them subject of the utterance's only predicator.
In short, assigning
utterance function is possible only from a global, contextualized, semantic-pragmatic
perspective, not syntactically from within the sentence window.
| symbol |
category |
examples
|
| UTT |
STA
QUE
COM
EXC |
utterance
enunciado
ytring |
Não
faz nada. [statement]
Já vais
embora? [question]
Espera!
[command]
Pobre de mim!
[exclamation]
|
| STA |
statement
enunciado declarativo
udsagn |
A terra é
redonda.
Gosta muito
de elefantes.
Sua vez.
Às sete.
Obrigado.
|
| QUE |
question
enunciado interrogativo
spørgsmål |
Quem quer
uma cerveja?
Já ligou
para o ministério?
Quando?
|
| COM |
command
enunciado imperativo
ordre |
Pára
com isso!
Venha pra cá!
Fora!
|
| EXC |
exclamation
enunciado exclamativo
udråb |
Deus!
Que beleza!
Quanta gente!
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