scholarly journals Brazilian Portuguese in-situ wh-interrogatives between rhetoric and change

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Malte Rosemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese

scholarly journals Actual and apparent change in Brazilian Portuguese wh-interrogatives

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-191
Author(s):  
Malte Rosemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Functional Change ◽  
Ex Situ ◽  
Frequency Increase ◽  
Usage Frequency ◽  
Replacement Process ◽  
Actual Change ◽  
Frequency Changes

ABSTRACTPrevious studies on the diachrony of wh-interrogation in Brazilian Portuguese have observed a replacement process of ex-situ-wh interrogatives by cleft-wh and in-situ-wh interrogatives in the twentieth century. The present study analyzes almost 19,000 wh-interrogatives from a corpus of theater plays dated between 1800 and 2016, demonstrating that not all of these frequency changes constitute actual change. The increase in the usage frequency of several types of wh-interrogatives is partially or entirely due to changes in the degree of orality of theater plays, or changes in word order. Moreover, only some of these changes can be characterized as changes from below, that is, changes in which high-orality texts are affected by the frequency increase first. This notion is also relevant for functional change in wh-interrogatives. Over time, the use of cleft-wh and in-situ-wh interrogatives spread from contexts in which the proposition is highly accessible to low-accessibility contexts. For cleft-wh, this change is moderated by orality, again indicating change from below.

scholarly journals Echo questions in Brazilian Portuguese

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary A. Kato
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Declarative Sentence ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Echo Questions

ABSTRACT Brazilian Portuguese (BP) can have the wh-element in-situ with two types of sentence intonation: (a) the rising intonation of a yes/no question, in which case it is interpreted as an echo question, and (b) the falling intonation, similar to that of a declarative sentence, in which case it is interpreted as an ordinary question. Kato (2013) analyzed the falling intonation type as a fake wh-in-situ, with a short movement of the wh-element to a lower focus position, inspired by Miyagawa’s (2001) proposal for Japanese whereas the rising intonation type was analyzed in accordance with Kayne’s (1994) proposal, with the whole TP containing the wh-element moving to Spec of C. In this article we maintain the analysis of the wh-in-situ with falling intonation as a fake in-situ but analyze the echo question as a short yes/no indirect question. The languages used to support this analysis of BP are English, French, and Japanese.

The pragmatics of Spanish postposed wh-interrogatives

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malte Rosemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
Discourse Functions

Abstract This study analyzes the pragmatics of in-situ wh- and complex bare wh-interrogatives such as ¿de qué? ‘of what?’ in spoken Spanish, developing a typology of their discourse functions. The interpretation of such postposed wh-interrogatives depends on inference processes by the hearer that take as cues both the degree to which the interrogative proposition and the referent of the interrogative pronoun/adverb are cognitively accessible. This relationship follows from the fact that on the basis of the combination of the information states of the interlocutors (i.e. the degree of accessibility of the proposition and the referent of wh) with the information structure of this type of wh-interrogatives, the utterer of the wh-interrogative can predict the pragmatic effect of a given postposed wh-interrogative token in the hearer. I establish a hierarchy of the different discourse functions on the basis of their potential to change the current ‘Question under Discussion’ (QuD). In particular, the analysis demonstrates that postposed wh-interrogatives that realize or imply a challenge to a previous utterance by the addressee of the interrogative have weaker pragmatic conditions than other uses. Consequently, I theorize that these uses are crucial for our understanding of the expansion of the use of in-situ wh-interrogatives in languages such as French and Brazilian Portuguese.

Rendez vous with Saturn's rings

1984 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 743-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry T. Nock
Keyword(s):  
Solar Energy ◽  
Electric Propulsion ◽  
Power Source ◽  
Propulsion System ◽  
Low Thrust ◽  
Ring Plane ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Total Impulse ◽  
Saturn's Rings

ABSTRACTA mission to rendezvous with the rings of Saturn is studied with regard to science rationale and instrumentation and engineering feasibility and design. Future detailedin situexploration of the rings of Saturn will require spacecraft systems with enormous propulsive capability. NASA is currently studying the critical technologies for just such a system, called Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP). Electric propulsion is the only technology which can effectively provide the required total impulse for this demanding mission. Furthermore, the power source must be nuclear because the solar energy reaching Saturn is only 1% of that at the Earth. An important aspect of this mission is the ability of the low thrust propulsion system to continuously boost the spacecraft above the ring plane as it spirals in toward Saturn, thus enabling scientific measurements of ring particles from only a few kilometers.

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