Perfect universal no português do Brasil: restrições sintático-semânticas para o uso de morfologias verbais

Abstract

The universal perfect aspect (UP) associated to the present refers to events that started in the past and persist in the present (MCCAWLEY, 1981). This aspect, according to Jesus et al. (2017), can be conveyed in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) through simple present (SP), progressive periphrases (PROG), and present perfect (PP). We aimed to investigate the syntactic-semantics restrictions for the use of these morphologies in the expression of the UP in BP. The tested hypotheses were: (i) the SP conveys this aspect only when associated to phonetically realized adverbs/adverbial expressions that convey the UP, (ii) PROG periphrases are not associated to state verbs, and (iii) the PP only conveys the iterative reading. The methodology consisted of speech data analyses and a cloze test applied to BP speakers. Through the results, the hypotheses were refuted and we discussed the existence of other restrictions to the use of the morphologies in the expression of the UP.