The Gradience of the subjunctive mood: a usage-based approach

Abstract

In this work, we investigated the gradience of the subjunctive verbal mode in the speech community of Vitória da Conquista, Bahia, Brasil. Theoretically, we are anchored in the assumptions of Usage-Centered Functional Linguistics, which arises from the interface between two theoretical approaches: West Coast Functionalism (Givón, 1995, 2001) and Construction Grammar (Goldberg, 1995; Cappelle, 2006, 2009; Traugott; Trousdale, 2013). In this thesis, we aim to investigate the gradience of the subjunctive mood in syntactic contexts of independent clauses introduced by the lexeme talvez; of subordinate clauses and parenthetical clauses introduced by que in the Corpora of Erudite Portuguese and Popular Portuguese of the Conquista speaking community (Corpora do Português Culto e do Português Popular da comunidade de fala conquistense). Regarding the research question, we asked ourselves: Is the subjunctive mood only linked to the value of uncertainty in the irrealis modality? We suggest that the subjunctive form in these samples is related to a value of uncertainty, measured on a scale that may have a more accentuated or more attenuated uncertainty relationship expressed based on the inherent semantic values of the deontic and epistemic submodes and that the subjunctive tends to be more used where uncertainty and the feature of future projection are present. Given this gradation of the uncertainty value of the subjunctive, its variable use can be distributed in a continuum of the irrealis modality based on its two axes: deontic submode, with the values of volition, evaluation, preference and manipulation; and epistemic submode, with the values of probability, certainty and belief, according to the gradient of modality according to the Givonian view. Concerning the methodology, we are guided by the mixed method (Cunha Lacerda, 2016), which combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The research sample consists of 24 (twenty-four) interviews from the Português Popular de Vitória da Conquista (Corpus PPVC) and 24 (twenty-four) interviews from the Português Culto de Vitória da Conquista (Corpus PCVC). Regarding data analysis, the results revealed that, in the distribution of gradience and competition for the use of the subjunctive mood, on a 7-degree modality scale, the token frequency with constructions in the subjunctive mood was higher in the axes irrealis 1, irrealis 2, irrealis 3 in which uncertainty and the feature of future projection were more markedly present. The properties selected to observe the linguistic phenomenon that conditioned the selection of the application of the rule were the “type of clause”, the 3rd and 2nd person, the affirmative clauses in a subordinate context and the clauses with the negation scope for the contexts of independent clauses and for the parenthetic context. Regarding the verbs, the types that conditioned the form of the subjunctive were biconditional, perceptual, causative, volitional and existential. Regarding to verbal tenses, we came to the conclusion that the presence of the future projection conditions the subjunctive and the spread projection, which includes the present, past and future tenses, conditions the indicative mood. The research also shows that the gradience of the subjunctive can be explained by factors related to general domain cognitive skills, analogy, rich memory and categorization. This thesis also seeks to contribute to thinking about teaching the Verbal Mode in a more contextualized way with the student's linguistic reality.