Abstract
Among other possible criteria, verbs are classified according to their valency. This is recognized in traditional grammar, which refers to verbs as transitive, intransitive, copulative, and so on. But the complexity is much greater, if we consider the great number of different constructions in which each verb can occur. In this chapter several classification criteria of verbs are discussed and exemplified.
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Notes
- 1.
This statement must be qualified for the case of the participle. But there is evidence that the so-called participle in Portuguese in fact corresponds to two forms, only one of them belonging to the verb lexeme, sharing its valential properties, the other being a derived item that does not belong to the verb lexeme (see Perini 2015, Appendix 6).
- 2.
These categories are from Levin (1993).
- 3.
‘αRef’ in the Valency dictionary. Thematic relations like this are said to be paired.
- 4.
Be is a pretty complex verb, and can evoke other schemas, which do not concern us here.
- 5.
They differ as to which is the topic, but this is not a valential matter. Meaning has several layers, as is known.
- 6.
That is, it does not have [+R] in its functional potential—except in a few cases where this is stipulated in the diathesis of the verb.
- 7.
This role occurs, often with syntactic differences, in the valency of several verbs, for example, virar ‘become’, (se) converter ‘id.’, reduzir ‘reduce’, transformar ‘turn (into)’, and others.
- 8.
I disregard here the possibility of syntactic prototype rules, which are perfectly possible—in particular for such a widespread syntactic configuration as [6].
- 9.
In English some items, like ought, are always auxiliaries; Portuguese auxiliaries all have other functions.
- 10.
Not just “participle”. Portuguese has two participles, the verbal and the nominal one; the former occurs with auxiliaries, the latter patterns somewhat like an adjective; see Perini (2013, 2015, Appendix 6).
- 11.
See a complete list, and an excellent study, in Pontes (1973).
- 12.
Not a very good designation, since the construction itself is not light, but it will do for the moment.
- 13.
References
Borba, Francisco da Silva.1990. Dicionário gramatical de verbos do português contemporâneo do Brasil [Grammatical dictionary of verbs of contemporary Brazilian Portuguese]. São Paulo: Ed. UNESP.
Cançado, Márcia, Luísa Godoy, and Luana Amaral. 2013. Catálogo de verbos do português brasileiro [Catalogue of verbs of Brazilian Portuguese]. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG.
Carvalho, Janayna M.R. 2012. Valência dos verbos de conhecimento do português brasileiro [Valency of verbs of knowledge in Brazilian Portuguese]. Belo Horizonte: M.A. dissertation, UFMG.
Levin, Beth. 1993. English verb classes and alternations—A preliminary investigation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Perini, Mário A. 2013. Os dois particípios e a análise das passivas no português brasileiro [The two participles and the analysis of passives in Brazilian Portuguese]. In A gramática da oração: diferentes olhares [Grammar of the clause: Several views], ed. Maria Angélica F. Cunha, 68–84. Natal, RN: EDUFRN.
———. 2015. Describing verb valency: Practical and theoretical issues. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Pontes, Eunice. 1973. Verbos auxiliares em português [Auxiliary verbs in Portuguese]. Petrópolis: Vozes.
Scher, Ana Paula. 2003. Quais são as propriedades lexicais de uma construção com verbo leve? [What are the lexical properties of a light-verb construction?] In Semântica formal [Formal semantics], ed. Ana Lúcia Müller, Esmeralda V. Negrão, and Maria José Foltran. São Paulo: Ed. Contexto.
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Perini, M.A. (2021). Classification of Verbs. In: Function and Class in Linguistic Description. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78173-6_8
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