Transitivização de sumir e desaparecer no português: um caso de construcionalização lexical

Abstract

This paper describes the process of transitivization of the verbs sumir (to vanish) and desaparecer (to disappear) in Portuguese. Such verbs, despite being regarded as unaccusative forms in the traditional literature, are frequently found in transitive constructions in nowadays synchrony. It is argued that this change represents a process of lexical constructionalization (T&T, 2013), as far as the verb and the preposition become more entrenched and show loss of compositionality. It results in a FORMNEWMEANINGNEW and, as a consequence, represents a new acquisition for the lexical inventory. Besides, we assume that this process is cognitively motivated since there is a tendency for the subject presents a causation property, as Langacker argues (2008). As a research methodology, we made both quantitative and qualitative analysis of data since the fourteenth century, extracted from two different corpora. It was observed that the transitive sumir and desaparecer constructions appear in written records only in the nineteenth century. During our analysis, we separated the linguistic contexts by the light of the parameters established by Diewald (2002). It was found that occurrences of the desaparecer transitive construction show more atypical contexts than those expressed by the verb sumir. It shows that the first construction, besides being older in Portuguese, can be the source for the transitivization of the second through analogization. In this point of view, once formed a subscheme V.COM in the constructicon, the new “rule” became productive and started admitting new members and new microconstructions.