A família de construções ergativas no português

Abstract

This paper investigates the ergative pattern in Portuguese from an innovative point of view on three main aspects. Firstly, from the observation that the ergative pattern features meaning itself, independently of the meaning of verbs, it is defined as a construction, in terms of Goldberg's Construction Grammar (1995, 2006). Secondly, it is shown that the ergative construction is not limited to causative verbs. In fact, some verbs can instantiate the construction by means of coercion. Finally, it is also shown that the ergative pattern is best accounted for as a family of two related constructions, one with the clitic and other without it. The analysis shows the verbs that are semantically compatible with them in Portuguese and proposes a representation for them in order to describe their syntax and semantics and predict their productivity.