Semantic and syntactic aspects of the modal verb ‘ameaçar’

Autores

  • Luiz Fernando Ferreira Universidade Federal de Roraima
  • Núbia Ferreira Rech Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22456/2236-6385.153748

Resumo

The verb ameaçar originally means to intimidate, however, in Brazilian Portuguese, it has also developed a second meaning indicating possibilities which was not previously described in the literature. This paper’s goal is to provide a semantic and syntactic analysis of ameaçar’s modal use following formal semanticsand cartographic syntax. We have gathered and analyzed one hundred naturalistic data of ameaçar’s modal use from the Portuguese Corpus and also negative data using the introspective method. We assume that, semantically, ameaçar indicates that the actual world w is on the verge of becoming a possible world in which p is true and, syntactically, it is an unacusative lexical verb.

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Biografia do Autor

Luiz Fernando Ferreira, Universidade Federal de Roraima

Professor na Universidade Federal de Roraima, doutor pela Universidade de São Paulo.

Núbia Ferreira Rech, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Professora na Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, doutora pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.

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Publicado

2026-06-17

Como Citar

FERREIRA, Luiz Fernando; RECH, Núbia Ferreira. Semantic and syntactic aspects of the modal verb ‘ameaçar’. Cadernos do IL, [S. l.], n. 71, p. 1–36, 2026. DOI: 10.22456/2236-6385.153748. Disponível em: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/cadernosdoil/article/view/153748. Acesso em: 22 ago. 2026.

Edição

Seção

Artigos de estudos linguísticos