Os processos de gramaticalização e de lexicalização dos advérbios em -mente no português dos séculos XIV, XVI e XX

Abstract

In this work, we perform a diachronic study of adverbs ending in -mente in the Portuguese of 14th, 16th and 20th centuries, in order to investigate the grammaticalization and lexicalization processes such adverbs have been experiencing. To this end, we analyzed constructions ending in -mente from four corpora, which consists of the representative of historiographical prose following texts: Crônica Geral de Espanha (CGE), from 14th century;História da Província de Santa Cruz (HPSC) and Da Monarquia Lusitana (ML), from 16th century, and História do Brasil (HB), from 20th century. Based on Lehmann (2002), who argues that grammaticalization and lexicalization processes are not opposite but complementary, since they occur in parallel, we evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively the roles played by these adverbs and the degree of compositionality they present in every period we analyzed. We concluded that, as time has gone by, adverbs ending in -mente have become decreasingly compositional and have expanded their functions progressively. However, these adverbs have concluded neither of these processes yet, once they still cannot be taken as lexicalizated words, since the adverb’s adjectival base still appears predominantly transparent even in the most recent period; and still hold, in 20th century, mostly semantic functions.