FORMAL RELATIONS BETWEEN FIXED EXPRESSIONS AND LOCATIVE DISTRIBUTIONALLY FREE VERBAL CONSTRUCTIONS

Abstract

Fixed expressions (expressões cristalizadas – EC) are generally seen through the lenses of formal classification/identification, especially within the Lexicon?Grammar framework (GROSS, 1975). Within this theoretical?methodological approach, the possible relations between fixed expressions and the free verbal constructions (construções livres – CL), from which they may (or may not) derive, have not been addressed in a systematic way, at least for Portuguese. This work contributes, thus, for lexicological studies by establishing the formal relations between fixed expressions construed with locative verbs in Brazilian Portuguese (VALE, 2001), and the distributionally free verbal constructions (BAPTISTA, 2013) that use the same verbs. We conclude that a high number of ECs involve locative verbs (827/3.551), mainly in constructions in which the verb presents a noun in the direct complement position and another one in a prepositional, destination?locative complement (pregar chiclete na cruz^EC vs. pregar um quadro na parede^CL). Besides that, the ECs may present exactly the same structure as the CLs, producing ambiguous strings (suar a camisa^EC/CL, subir o morro^EC/CL); or even display some specific characteristics in their structure, like changes in the number of complements, which may differ from that of the distributionally free verbal construction whence they are derived (chutar o balde Ø^EC vs. chutar a bola no gol^CL). From the data analyzed, we posit that, despite the meaning of the frozen expressions not being compositional (they are idiomatic), it partially keeps the meaning and the construction of the distributionally free verbal construction entering in its formation.