Linguistic use and metalinguistic awareness: the case of cleaved sentences in Portuguese.

Abstract

The present work presents a study regarding the presence of some pragmatic-discursive forms existing in the Portuguese language, according to some authors, since the beginning of the 19th century. For a long time, these forms were included, by various grammars, in the large group of highlighting expressions without being analysed from a structural and functional point of view. However, in this large set of expressions linked to speech, there are some – more specifically, cleft constructions – present in both European and Brazilian Portuguese, which function as operators of informative and contrastive focus. Based on current theoretical references about these forms, this work offers an analysis of the clefts present in a small corpus of texts by Eça de Queirós to corroborate the thesis that, around the 19th century, these pragmatic constructions were present and used as discursive strategies.

Keywords
cleft sentences; metalinguistic awareness; spoken language