This work investigates the morphosyntactic, morphological and semantic properties of Brazilian Portuguese prefix re- in the framework of Distributed Morphology. It seeks to establish its distribution and semantic contribution on the contexts in which they occur. This article shows evidences that the prefix studied here modifies (repeats) states that may be the target of the event described by the verb in which it is licensed. Assuming event structures syntactically represented, we understand the distribution of the prefix and explain the interpretation of the prefixed verb in terms of scope of the prefix in the event structure associated to the base verb: in the proposal, the prefix will scope the part of the event strucutre which denotes the target state. And we do not find the prefix in verbs which are not associated to event structures that include a state in their denotation. Once states in event structures may be denoted by adjectives, bare roots, some kinds of prepositional phrases, etc., we argue that the prefix does not make a categorial selection.
Prefix re-; Distributed morphology; Event structure
