En esta tesis se ahonda en el conocimiento que en la actualidad se posee sobre el significado de los adverbios en -mente del español. Se propone un análisis que explica los usos que puede tener un adverbio partiendo de sus propiedades semánticas. Con este fin, se analizan siete subclases de adverbios, de las que se seleccionan 84 unidades, con dos resultados principales: 1) se refinan las descripciones previas sobre el adverbio, que suelen basarse en extrapolaciones del comportamiento de las unidades prototípicas; y 2) se reconocen los rasgos semánticos característicos de cada grupo adverbial que explican el comportamiento de sus miembros. La principal novedad radica en que se analiza la vinculación entre la semántica adjetiva y la adverbial; en concreto, se examina la herencia por parte de los adverbios de la estructura argumental de sus bases adjetivas, así como el modo en que esta estructura argumental determina el uso adverbial. / This thesis is an in-depth study of the semantics of -mente adverbs in Spanish. With the goal of explaining the distribution of these adverbs on the basis of their semantic characteristics, 84 adverbs from seven subclasses were analysed, with two important results: 1) a refinement of the existing descriptions of these adverbs, largely thanks to the consideration of a wider array of data; and 2) a description of the semantic features that characterize each of the seven subclasses and predict their behavior. In particular, we get a clear picture of the relationship between the semantics of the base adjectives and the resulting adverbs, including aspects of meaning such as the inheritance of the argument structure of the adjectives by the corresponding adverbs, and the role argument structure plays in determining the adverbs' uses.

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'introduire la grammaire générative dans l'étude philosophique de la signification linguistique des langues naturelles, tout en l'articulant à une théorie contextualiste du sens. Nous montrerons d'abord en quoi les procédures syntaxiques sont autonomes de toute contrainte sémantique externe (thèse d'autonomie de la syntaxe), tout en contraignant la construction du sens linguistique (thèse du syntactocentrisme). Nous montrerons également qu'un filtrage contextuel des expressions grammaticales mais pas utilisables s'opère à un niveau post-syntaxique sur le résultat des dérivations syntaxiques. Dans un deuxième temps, nous montrerons que la syntaxe détermine la structure de la signification. Nous commencerons par critiquer les conceptions lexicalistes, selon lesquelles la structure de la signification dérive d'informations contenues dans les items lexicaux. Puis nous montrerons que les formes sémantiques des expressions sont des structures événementielles dont chaque élément correspond strictement à un élément de la structure syntaxique. Dans un troisième temps, nous montrerons que tandis que la structure interprétative est rigidement déterminée par la structure syntaxique, le contenu des termes mobilisés dans les expressions est quant à lui le résultat d'une interaction entre contenu conceptuel, structure syntaxique et filtrage contextuel. Cela s'accompagnera d'une conception des concepts comme entrées encyclopédiques comportant une multiplicité d'informations sur lesquelles s'opère une sélection locale de l'information pertinente en fonction du contexte. / The goal of this dissertation is to introduce generative grammar into the philosophical study of linguistic meaning in natural languages, while articulating it with a contextualist theory of meaning. First, we will show that syntactic procedures are autonomous from any external semantic constraints (autonomy of syntax thesis) while constraining the construction of linguistic meaning (syntactocentrism thesis). We will also show that the results of syntactic derivations that are grammatical but not usable are contextually filtered out at a post-syntactic stage. In a second part, we will show that syntax determines the structure of meaning. We will start by criticizing the lexicalist conceptions accordinf to which the structure of meaning derives from data included in lexical items. Then we will show that the semantic forms of expressions are event structures of which each element strictly corresponds to an element in syntactic structure. In a third part, we will show that while interpretive structure is rigidly determined by syntactic structure, the content of terms used in expressions is the result of an interaction involving conceptual content, syntactic structure and contextual filtering. This entails a conception of concepts as encyclopedic entries made up of a multiplicity of data on which a local selection of contextually relevant information operates.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:06:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 NedjaLL_DISSERT.pdf: 857167 bytes, checksum: 49e2682be8b2ef467c548d20ef43c71c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-07-09 / Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte / This paper attempts to investigate the discourse manifestations of the grammatical relation direct object with respect to the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties that underlie this element. The research adopts theoretical orientation of the functionalism from North American and Brazilian schools inspired in Giv?n (1995, 2001), Hopper and Thompson (1980), Chafe (1979), Furtado da Cunha, Oliveira, Martelotta (2003) inter alia. From functionalism, the research uses principles of iconicity, markedness and informativity and it analize categories of transitivity, grounding and animacy. This research is anchored in prototype model (TAYLOR 1995); construction grammar model (GOLDBERG 1996, 2002). Both theoretical orientations share the view that language is a malleable living organism subject to socio-cultural context. Grammar is then the result of created, maintained, and systematized linguistic patterns developed from and used for language use. According to a functional linguistics and cognitivist linguistics verbs are stored in the speakers lexicon in syntactic-semantic frames which are more frequent. These frames carry information concerning obligatory and optional arguments and the semantic roles these arguments take in the clause. The analysis focuses on the semantic type of the verbs and its relationship with the argument encoded as a direct object observing the aspectual nature of verbs. Direct objects are classified according to their morphology (lexical or pronominal noun phrase), semantic role, informational content and animacy. This study discusses pedagogical implications with relation to how the grammatical concepts touched on this paper are treated in school textbooks. The empirical data come from Corpus Discurso & Gram?tica: a l?ngua falada e escrita na cidade do Natal (FURTADO DA CUNHA, 1998). This corpus is composed of texts that contain spoken and written modalities. These modalities are in turn organized according to different types: personal narratives, retold narrative, description of preferred place, procedural place, procedural description and report on argumentation. The sample data totals 40 texts produced by four language consultants of the last graduation date. The paper shows that the same syntactic structures (formed through Subject-Verb-Object) correspond to different semantic-pragmatic structures in relation to specific communicative purposes even verb is an event, process or state. The argument structure are not aleatory but are related to experience; that is the way humans conceptualize the world and talk about it / Este trabalho tem por objetivo investigar as manifesta??es discursivas da rela??o gramatical objeto direto, tomando por base os n?veis sint?tico-sem?ntico e discursivo-pragm?tico que subjazem ? manifesta??o desse elemento. Para isso, a pesquisa ? orientada pelo quadro te?rico do funcionalismo, na sua vertente norte-americana e brasileira, de inspira??o em Giv?n (1995, 2001), Hopper e Thompson (1980), Chafe (1979), Furtado da Cunha, Oliveira, Martelotta (2003), entre outros. Do ponto de vista dessa corrente te?rica, a pesquisa aplica os princ?pios de iconicidade, marca??o e informatividade, e examina as categorias transitividade, plano discursivo e animacidade. A pesquisa se ancora, ainda, na lingu?stica cognitiva, em especial, no modelo dos prot?tipos (TAYLOR, 1995) e da gram?tica das constru??es (GOLDBERG, 1996, 2002). Essas duas correntes te?ricas compartilham a vis?o de que a l?ngua ? um organismo vivo e male?vel, sujeito ?s press?es oriundas dos contextos socioculturais. A gram?tica, por sua vez, ? o resultado de padr?es lingu?sticos criados, mantidos e sistematizados no e para o uso da l?ngua. De acordo com a lingu?stica funcional e a lingu?stica cognitiva, os verbos s?o armazenados no l?xico do falante em molduras, ou enquadres sint?tico-sem?nticos, que s?o mais frequentes no uso interacional da l?ngua. Essas molduras trazem informa??o sobre que argumentos s?o obrigat?rios e quais s?o opcionais, bem como que pap?is sem?nticos esses argumentos desempenham na ora??o. A an?lise prioriza os tipos sem?nticos de verbo e sua rela??o com o argumento codificado sintaticamente como objeto direto, observando, ainda, a natureza aspectual dos verbos. Os objetos diretos s?o classificados quanto ? codifica??o morfol?gica (Sintagma Nominal lexical ou Sintagma Nominal pronominal), papel sem?ntico, status informacional e animacidade. O trabalho busca estabelecer uma ponte entre teoria lingu?stica e ensino de l?ngua, na medida em que examina os fen?menos relacionados ? estrutura argumental e a maneira como esses fen?menos s?o tratados no ?mbito dos livros did?ticos escolares. A fonte dos dados emp?ricos ? o Corpus Discurso & Gram?tica: a l?ngua falada e escrita na cidade do Natal (FURTADO DA CUNHA, 1998), composto por textos na modalidade falada e seus correspondentes na modalidade escrita, que se configuram em diferentes tipos, a saber: narrativa de experi?ncia pessoal, narrativa recontada, descri??o de local, relato de procedimento e relato de opini?o. As amostras totalizam um conjunto de quarenta textos produzidos por quatro informantes do ?ltimo per?odo universit?rio. O trabalho evidencia que uma mesma estrutura sint?tica (formada por Sujeito Verbo Objeto) corresponde a diferentes estruturas sem?nticopragm?ticas, relacionadas a determinados fins comunicativos, seja o verbo de evento, processo ou estado. Essas estruturas argumentais n?o s?o aleat?rias, mas est?o relacionadas ? experi?ncia, isto ?, ao modo como os seres humanos apreendem o mundo e falam sobre ele

A presente pesquisa está inserida nos estudos com base na Gramática de Construções Cognitiva, e tem por objetivo realizar um mapeamento sintático-semântico do verbo stellen, com ênfase em seu uso como verbo-suporte. Para a realização desse mapeamento, analisou-se contextos de uso do verbo stellen em que ele ocorre como verbo pleno, como integrante de construções com verbo-suporte e de outros fraseologismos que se inserem nas fronteiras com essas construções. A análise dos dados está baseada na abordagem construcional de Goldberg (1995 e 2006), para quem construções são definidas como pareamentos entre forma e significado. A autora se foca em um tipo específico de construção as chamadas construções de estrutura argumental que seriam, por si só, portadoras de sentido, independentemente de outros itens lexicais que compõem as sentenças. No que diz respeito à análise da estrutura argumental das construções com verbo-suporte (doravante CVS), levamos em conta os trabalhos de Wittenberg e Piñango (2011), Rostila (2011) e Wittenberg (2016). A metodologia adotada baseou-se na elaboração de um corpus composto por informações retiradas de entradas de dicionários em língua alemã e por excertos de textos retirados do Arquivo Wikipedia Artikel und Diskussionen, fornecido pelo banco dados COSMAS II, do Institut für Deutsche Sprache, da Universidade de Mannheim. Os resultados obtidos com o estudo aqui realizado confirmam o princípio da economia semântica postulado pela Gramática de Construções, já que os sentidos atribuídos tradicionalmente ao verbo stellen, são, na verdade, resultado da instanciação do verbo nas construções argumentais que ele pode integrar, são elas, a Construção de Movimento Causado, a Construção Transitiva, a Construção Resultativa e a Construção Bitransitiva. Os resultados da análise das CVS deverbais indicam que o sentido dessas construções é influenciado pela estrutura argumental tanto do verbo-suporte, quanto do componente nominal, em um processo de partilha de argumentos. Além disso, foram encontradas no corpus CVS formadas por stellen que, por serem altamente lexicalizadas, são consideradas unidades armazenadas como um todo no Léxico. / This master\'s dissertation belongs to the studies of Cognitive Construction Grammar and aims to demonstrate a sintatic and semantic investigation of the light verb stellen. Thus, the verb was analyzed in contexts, in which the verb stellen is a fullverb and as a component of light verb constructions and other phraseologies, which are considered as borderline cases of such constructions. This analysis was carried out following Goldberg\'s perspective (1995). The author assumes that the constructions are defined as form-meaning pairs and are considered as the fundamental unit of grammar. Goldberg argues, that constructions, disregarding their verbal meaning, are the significant components because of the Argument Structure. The analysis of the Argument Structure of the light verb constructions is based on the scientific researches of Rostila (2011), Wittenberg and Piñango (2011) and Wittenberg (2016).After all, this analysis is described as qualitative and based on corpus. For the creation of the corpus, examples were used from German dictionaries as well as dictionaries for German as a foreign language. Besides, references of the archive Wikipedia Artikel und Diskussionen of the IDS COSMAS II database of texts of the University of Mannheim were collected.The results confirm the principle of the semantic economy because the meanings, that are traditionally assing to the verb stellen, can be understood as the result of the relations between verb and four argument structure construciotns: The Caused Motion Construction, the Transitive Construction, the Resultative Construction and the Ditransitive Construction. Hence, the results of the analysis of non-deverbal light verb constructions suggest that both the argument structure of the light verb and the argument structure of the nominal element influence the entire meaning of the construction within a process of argument-sharing. In the corpus, there were other examples of light verb constructions with the verb stellen, of which its nominal component had no separate Argument Structure. Those light verb constructions are highly lexicalized and therefore included in the lexicon as a whole.

Uppsatsen behandlar konstruktionsmönster vid de bitransitiva verben sända och giva i äldre forn­svenska, yngre fornsvenska och äldre nysvenska. I uppsatsen undersöks dels för­del­ningen mellan de fyra konstruktionsalternativen DAT-ACK, ACK-DAT, PP-ACK och ACK-PP för sända respektive giva under var och en av de undersökta perioderna, dels vilka se­mantiska och informationsstrukturella faktorer som ligger bakom valet av en viss kon­struk­tions­va­riant vid ett visst verb under en viss tidsperiod. Resultaten visar att för verbet sända fö­re­lig­g­er inga sig­nifikanta skillnader i för­delningen av konstruktionsalternativ mellan de tre tids­pe­ri­oderna. Verbet konstrueras med ACK-PP i över hälften av fallen under alla tidsperioderna, me­dan DAT-ACK genomgående står för ungefär en tredjedel av beläggen. Verbet giva upp­vi­s­ar däremot en signifikant minskad användning av ACK-DAT mellan yngre fornsvenska och äl­d­re nysvenska, medan bruket av ACK-PP ökar under samma period. Mellan äldre forn­sven­ska och yngre fornsvenska ökar bruket av DAT-ACK, medan ACK-PP blir ovanligare. Båda des­sa tendenser beror dock på en specifik användning av ACK-PP i Fornsvenska legendariet, och speg­lar förmodligen inte utvecklingen i språket som helhet. Vad gäller de informationsstruktu­r­ella fak­torerna påverkar dessa valet av konstruktionstyp i stort sett som väntat, i så måtto att kor­t­a­re, pronominella och definita led (dvs. informationsstrukturellt tematiska led) ofta pla­ce­ras fö­re längre, icke-pronominella och indefinita led (informationsstrukturellt rematiska). Ana­lysen av de semantiska variablerna visade att DAT-ACK vid båda verben gynnas av ani­ma­ta m/m-ar­gument (mottagare/mål) och abstrakta p/t-argument (patient/tema), medan ACK-PP å andra si­dan gynnas av inanimata m/m-argument och konkreta p/t-argument. Vid verbet sän­da kon­stru­eras DAT-ACK enbart med animata m/m-argument, medan verbet giva i äldre och yngre forn­svenska endast konstrueras med ACK-PP om m/m-argumentet är inanimat. En se­mantisk ut­vidgning av ACK-PP vid verbet giva uppstår emellertid i äldre nysvenska, där kon­struk­tions­varianten blir kompatibel även med animata m/m-argument. ACK-DAT är vid verbet gi­va vanligare när p/t-argumentet betecknar någonting konkret, vilket indikerar en se­man­tisk upp­delning inte bara mellan dubbelobjektsvariant och prepositionsvariant utan även mel­lan de bå­da dubbelobjektsvarianterna DAT-ACK och ACK-DAT.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit psychologischen Verben, d.h. Verben, die dadurch charakterisiert sind, dass eines ihrer Argumente Träger eines psychischen Prozesses (Experiencer) ist. Diese ‚Psych-Verben’ nehmen seit mindestens 30 Jahren eine zentrale Rolle in linguistischen Diskussionen zu Syntax, Semantik und deren Schnittstellen ein und werden häufig als eine besondere Verbklasse mit spezifischen (Psych-)Eigenschaften angesehen. Dabei ist nicht nur die Analyse dieser Verben, sondern bereits ihre korrekte empirische Charakterisierung Auslöser starker Kontroversen in der Literatur. Der erste Teil dieser Arbeit widmet sich deshalb der Untersuchung der empirischen Eigenschaften von Objekt-Experiencer-Verben wie Agentivität, aspektuelle Eigenschaften, Passiv sowie ihrem Verhalten in Bezug auf eine Reihe anderer grammatischer Phänomene. Ein Fokus liegt dabei auf dem Vergleich von Verben, die basierend auf derselben Wurzel unterschiedliche Formen bilden wie z.B. ärgern/verärgern/sich ärgern, wundern/verwundern/sich wundern etc. Die Ergebnisse der empirischen Untersuchung zeigen, dass weder ObjExp-Verben noch Experiencer eine homogene Gruppe mit kohärenten Eigenschaften darstellen. Folglich können Psych-Verben nicht als eine einheitliche (besondere) Gruppe von Verben analysiert werden, da ihre Eigenschaften zu unterschiedlich sind und sie vielmehr in verschiedene Verbgruppen fallen. Im theoretischen Teil der Arbeit wird deshalb eine dekompositionelle Analyse im Paradigma von Distributed Morphology vorgeschlagen, die die unterschiedlichen Gruppen von Psych-Verben als solche analysiert und ihre Eigenschaften auf der Basis allgemeiner grammatischer Prinzipien (aspektuelle Eigenschaften sowie Präsenz/Absenz eines externen Arguments) erklärt, und besonders die stativen Kausativa diskutiert. Als Resultat muss konstatiert werden, dass ‚Psych-Verben’ als grammatisch relevante Gruppe nicht existieren, sondern diese Verben vielmehr unterschiedlichen bekannten Verbmustern folgen. / This thesis is concerned with German psychological verbs, i.e. verbs characterized by the fact that one of their arguments is associated with a psychological process. These psych verbs have been prominent in linguistic discussion on syntax, semantics, and their interfaces for at least 30 years, and are often considered to form a special group of verbs with specific ‘psych properties’. Not only the theoretical analysis but also the correct characterization of their empirical properties is a matter of controversy in the literature, and no consensus has been established with respect to either. Therefore, in the first part of this thesis, the empirical properties of object-experiencer verbs such as agentivity, aspectual properties, passive, and the behaviour of these verbs with respect to a number of other grammatical phenomena are examined. Special focus is placed on alternating verbs formed on the basis of the same Root, such as e.g. ärgern/verärgern/sich ärgern, etc. The results of the empirical analysis show that neither ObjExp verbs nor experiencers form a homogeneous group with coherent properties. On the contrary, these verbs fall into several different groups of verbs with clearly different properties. Consequently, psych verbs cannot be analysed as one (special) group of verbs. The theoretical part of this thesis therefore puts forward a decompositional analysis couched in the paradigm of Distributed Morphology, which analyses the different psych verbs as different groups of verbs, and explains their properties as the consequence of general grammatical principles (their aspectual properties, and the presence/absence of an external argument), not special psych properties. The discussion of stative causative ObjExp verbs plays a major part. As a result, the conclusion has to be drawn that ‘psych verbs’ do not constitute a grammatically relevant (special) group of verbs, but that these verbs follow different general patterns known from the study of other verbs.

This study focuses on the predicate argument structure (PAS) of a sub-class of verbs in Xitsonga - verbs of change of possession: give, contribute, future having, providing, obtaining and verbs of exchange. It is shown that these verbs select various theta roles to form their PAS in the different alternations allowed in this language. The effects of the applicative {-el-} and causative {-is-} verbal affixes on the PAS of such verbs are also considered. The study confirms the fact that the ordering of objects in ditransitive verbs is determined by an interplay of syntactic and semantic factors. Ambiguity arises in the case of two animate objects. In this case the object with a definite reading will appear adjacent to the verb. / African Languages / M. A. (Arican Languages)

In this dissertation, I investigate various aspects of object marking and how these manifest themselves in the signed modality. The main focus is on Swedish Sign Language (SSL), the national sign language of Sweden, which is the topic of investigation in all five studies. Two of the studies adopt a comparative perspective, including other sign languages as well. The studies comprise a range of data, including corpus data, elicited production, and acceptability judgments, and combine quantitative and qualitative methods in the analyses. The dissertation begins with an overview of the topics of valency, argument structure, and object marking, primarily from a spoken language perspective. Here, the interactions between semantics and morphosyntax are presented from a typological perspective, introducing differential object marking as a key concept. With regard to signed language, object marking is discussed in terms of both verbal and nominal strategies. Verbal strategies of object marking among sign languages include directional verbs, object handshape classifiers, and embodied perspective in signing. The first study investigates the use of directionality and object handshapes as object marking strategies in Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL), Israeli Sign Language (ISL), and SSL. It is shown that the strategies generally display different alignments in terms of the types of objects targeted, which is uniform across languages, but that directionality is much more marginal in ABSL than in the other two languages. Also, we see that there is a connection between object marking strategies and the animacy of the object, and that the strategies, object animacy, and word order preferences interact. In the second and third studies, SSL is investigated with regard to the transitive–reflexive distinction. Here, we see that there are interactional effects between object handshapes and the perspective taken by the signer. This points to intricate iconic motivations of combining and structuring complex verb sequences, such as giving preference to agent focusing structures (e.g., agent perspective and handling handshapes). Furthermore, the use of space is identified as a crucial strategy for reference tracking, especially when expressing semantically transitive events. Nominal strategies include object pronouns and derivations of the sign PERSON. The fourth study provides a detailed account of the object pronoun OBJPRO in SSL, which is the first in-depth description of this sign. It is found that the sign is in widespread use in SSL, often corresponds closely to object pronouns of spoken Swedish, and is argued to be grammaticalized from the lexical sign PERSON. In the final study, the possible existence of object pronouns in other sign languages is investigated by using a sample of 24 languages. This analysis reveals that the feature is found mostly in the Nordic countries, suggesting areal contact phenomena. However, the study also shows that there are a number of derivations of PERSON, such as reflexive pronouns, agreement auxiliaries, and case markers. The use of PERSON as a source of grammaticalization for these functions is attributed to both semantic and phonological properties of the sign. This dissertation is unique in that it is dedicated to the topic of object marking in the signed modality. It brings a variety of perspectives and methods together in order to investigate the domain of object marking, cross-linguistically and cross-modally.

Esta tese estuda quatro construções que tiveram/estão tendo mudanças em sua sintaxe no português brasileiro (PB). São elas: anticausativas, como em (1) O prato (se) quebrou: médias, como em (2) Essa roupa (se) lava fácil, o membro inacusativo da alternância agentiva, (3) Essa roupa lavou (*se) ontem e impessoais, como (4) Nesse lugar (se) vende bota. Afirmo que as mudanças nas estruturas desses eventos possuem uma origem em comum: a perda de SE que nucleia um tipo de projeção Voice específica. Essa projeção de Voice pode ou não projetar um especificador em que um argumento implícito pro é alocado. Quando essa projeção de Voice tem o especificador projetado, origina-se a interpretação de que um humano é responsável pelo evento. Essa é a interpretação em médias e impessoais com SE. Nos casos em que a projeção de Voice não tem o especificador projetado, a leitura que se tem é de um evento espontâneo que aconteceu sem que um Agente o promovesse, como em anticausativas. Em relação a esse argumento implícito em alguns dos eventos tratados, no Capítulo 2, demonstro que uma série de diferenças dos eventos estudados em relação a outras línguas românicas está relacionada ao tipo de argumento implícito projetado em Voice. O argumento implícito em PB é forte, comportando-se como um DP e funcionando como um interventor em função da sua constituição. Em contraste, o argumento implícito em espanhol, por exemplo, é fraco e não é um interventor em relações de Agree de uma sonda com mais de um argumento (nos casos em que essas relações são lícitas). Essa característica é responsável por diferenças significativas entre os eventos com SE do PB e de outras línguas românicas, algumas das quais foram exploradas nesta tese. Um caminho analítico empregado em vários dos capítulos desta tese é cotejo das variantes marcadas e não marcadas dos eventos estudados acima. No Capítulo 3, lido com anticausativas marcadas e suas contrapartes não marcadas e demonstro que nada mudou na estrutura desse evento com a perda de SE. Isso é esperado, já que anticausativas só possuem um argumento e SE tem o único papel de nuclear Voice. No Capítulo 4, estudo médias marcadas e não-marcadas e demonstro que houve uma alteração substancial na sintaxe desses eventos. Médias não-marcadas não possuem nenhum argumento implícito e são inacusativas para todos os testes relevantes. Isso mostra que as médias não-marcadas em PB se distanciam de médias não-marcadas do inglês, por exemplo, que são descritas como sentenças transitivas. Nesse caso, a perda de SE levou à perda de Voice. No Capítulo 5, estudo o membro inacusativo da alternância agentiva, exemplo em (4), e mostro que, apesar de esse tipo de evento não se combinar com SE, o que aponta que não há Voice nucleada por SE nas sentenças que expressam esse tipo de evento, elas são um subproduto da existência de médias inacusativas não-marcadas no PB. Isto é, sentenças como Essa roupa lavou ontem são uma generalização dos contextos em que uma estrutura como Essa roupa lava fácil pode entrar. Nesse sentido, essas sentenças também estão relacionadas com a perda de um tipo de Voice específico no PB, mas de uma forma indireta. Por último, no Capítulo 6, estudo sentenças impessoais e mostro que a variante não-marcada é talvez um dos eventos estudados nesta tese em que mais houve mudanças, porque essas sentenças sinalizam também uma mudança em TP. Ao contrário de médias e o membro inacusativo da alternância agentiva, todavia, sentenças impessoais necessitam de um argumento externo. Em sentenças como Nesse lugar (se) vende bota, o locativo é o especificador de Voice. Esse elemento é usado nesse tipo de sentença locativa justamente porque locativos geram leituras existenciais. Em suma, este estudo descreve uma série de mudanças em eventos do PB que acontecem, em última análise, em virtude da perda de morfologia nessa língua. O estudo contribui, assim, para dois debates maiores: i) de que forma mudanças de parâmetro podem afetar os eventos da gramática; ii) se eventos são melhor descritos por abordagens lexicais ou sintáticas. Os resultados aqui reportados mostram que mudanças de parâmetros podem afetar eventos, embora não essa não seja uma característica definidora do parâmetro pro-drop, por exemplo. Além disso, os dados do PB mostram que eventos concebidos como fruto de alternâncias lexicais em muitas abordagens atuais, como anticausativas e médias, mudam de acordo com tendências sintáticas da língua e são melhor tratadas em abordagens sintáticas em virtude disso. / In this thesis, I study four constructions that have changed in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), namely anticausatives, as in (1) The plate (se) broke; middles, as in (2) These clothes (se) wash easily; the unaccusative member of the agentive alternation, (3) This cloth (*se) washed yesterday and impersonals, as in (4) In this place (se) sell boots. I argue that all these changes are related to the loss of a Voice projection whose nucleus is the clitic SE. The said projection can or cannot project a specifier, in which pro is merged. When pro is present, the interpretation of an entity responsible for the event originates. This is found in middles and impersonal sentences with SE. As anticausatives are spontaneous events, in this particular case, this type of Voice does not project a specifier. In respect to the implicit argument in some of these events, in Chapter 2, I show that several contrasts among these events in Romance languages can be accounted for if there are different types of implicit arguments. Whereas the implicit argument in BP is strong, i.e. it behaves as a regular DP and intervenes in Agree relations, in Spanish it is a weak implicit argument and does not intervene when the probe enters in a relationship with more than one goal. These constituency differences are responsible for the differences between events with SE in BP and other languages, some of them are treated in this thesis. Throughout the analysis, I compare the SE-variant with its alternative realization without the clitic. In Chapter 3, I deal with marked anticausatives and their unmarked counterparts. I claim that nothing really changed in this case despite the loss of SE. This is expected, since Voiced anticausatives do not project an implicit argument. In Chapter 4, I deal with marked and unmarked middles, showing a substantial change in their structure. There is no implicit argument in unmarked middles and they behave as generic unaccusative for all relevant tests. This shows that unmarked middles in BP differ from English middles, which are normally analyzed as transitive or unergatives. In this case, the loss of SE led to the loss of Voice. In Chapter 5, I study the unaccusative member of the agentive alternation, exemplified by (3). I argue that, although SE is not licensed in this type of event, which shows that there is no Voice in it, they are a byproduct of unmarked middles in BP. In other words, sentences like This cloth washed yesterday (lit.) are a generalization over the contexts in which This cloth washes easily is licensed. For this reason, these sentences are also related to the loss of a specific type of Voice in BP, albeit in an indirect way. Finally, in Chapter 6, I study impersonal sentences. The unmarked variant of this type of event is perhaps the most affected one, since the changes do not affect only Voice, but also T. Unlike middles and the unaccusative member of the agentive alternation, however, impersonal sentences need an external argument. In sentences such as (4), the locative is the specifier of Voice. This element is used because locatives generate existential readings. To sum up, this study describes a series of changes in BP events that happened ultimately due to the loss of morphology in this language. This study contributes to two major debates: i) in which way changes of parameter can affect events; ii) if events are better described by lexical or syntactic approaches. The results reported in this thesis indicate that parametrical changes can affect events, even though this is not a defining property of the pro-drop parameter. In respect to (ii), BP data shows that events traditionally treated by lexical approaches, as anticausatives and middles, are tied in with general morphossyntactic changes in the language and are thus better explained by syntactic approaches.

Grâce à l’évolution de la technologie à travers le Web, la documentation relative à la santé est de plus en plus abondante et accessible à tous, plus particulièrement aux patients, qui ont ainsi accès à une panoplie d’informations sanitaires. Malheureusement, la grande disponibilité de l’information médicale ne garantit pas sa bonne compréhension par le public visé, en l’occurrence les non-experts. Notre projet de thèse a pour objectif la création d’une ressource de simplification de textes médicaux, à partir d’une analyse syntaxico-sémantique des verbes dans quatre corpus médicaux en français qui se distinguent de par le degré d’expertise de leurs auteurs et celui des publics cibles. La ressource conçue contient 230 patrons syntaxicosémantiques des verbes (appelés pss), alignés avec leurs équivalents non spécialisés. La méthode semi-automatique d’analyse des verbes appliquée pour atteindre notre objectif est basée sur quatre tâches fondamentales : l’annotation syntaxique des corpus, réalisée grâce à l’analyseur syntaxique Cordial (Laurent, Dominique et al, 2009) ; l’annotation sémantique des arguments des verbes, à partir des catégories sémantiques de la version française de la terminologie médicale Snomed Internationale (Côté, 1996) ; l’acquisition des patrons syntactico-sémantiqueset l’analyse contrastive du fonctionnement des verbes dans les différents corpus. Les patrons syntaxico-sémantiques des verbes acquis au terme de ce processus subissent une évaluation (par trois équipes d’experts en médecine) qui débouche sur la sélection des candidats constituant la nomenclature de la ressource de simplification. Les pss sont ensuite alignés avec leurs correspondants non spécialisés, cet alignement débouche sur le création de la ressource de simplification, qui représente le résultat principal de notre travail de thèse. Une évaluation du rendement du contenu de la ressource a été effectuée avec deux groupes d’évaluateurs : des linguistes et des non-linguistes. Les résultats montrent que la simplification des pss permet de faciliter la compréhension du sens du verbe en emploi spécialisé, surtout lorsque un certains paramètres sont réunis. / With the evolution of Web technology, healthcare documentation is becoming increasinglyabundant and accessible to all, especially to patients, who have access to a large amount ofhealth information. Unfortunately, the ease of access to medical information does not guaranteeits correct understanding by the intended audience, in this case non-experts. Our PhD work aimsat creating a resource for the simplification of medical texts, based on a syntactico-semanticanalysis of verbs in four French medical corpora, that are distinguished according to the levelof expertise of their authors and that of the target audiences. The resource created in thepresent thesis contains 230 syntactico-semantic patterns of verbs (called pss), aligned withtheir non-specialized equivalents. The semi-automatic method applied, for the analysis of verbs,in order to achieve our goal is based on four fundamental tasks : the syntactic annotation of thecorpora, carried out thanks to the Cordial parser (Laurent et al., 2009) ; the semantic annotationof verb arguments, based on semantic categories of the French version of a medical terminologyknown as Snomed International (Côté, 1996) ; the acquisition of syntactico-semantic patternsof verbs and the contrastive analysis of the verbs behaviors in the different corpora. Thepss, acquired at the end of this process, undergo an evaluation (by three teams of medicalexperts) which leads to the selection of candidates constituting the nomenclature of our textsimplification resource. These pss are then aligned with their non-specialized equivalents, thisalignment leads to the creation of the simplification resource, which is the main result of ourPhD study. The content of the resource was evaluated by two groups of people : linguists andnon-linguists. The results show that the simplification of pss makes it easier for non-expertsto understand the meaning of verbs used in a specialized way, especially when a certain set ofparameters is collected.