Português

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze, on a preliminary basis, the discursive and ambiguous effects of relative constructions in scientific articles in the area of ​​Psychology and in textual productions by beginning undergraduate students. Traditionally, in general, the explanatory, in contrast to the restrictive relative, are expressed prosodically by isolation, that is, textually marked pause. This aspect, in many cases, results in an ambiguous interpretation or results from a particular discursive effect, especially in textual productions in the written modality. In order to analyze the possible occurrence of ambiguity or discursive effect in these constructions, a sample from xxxx (2022) with140 abstracts produced by students attending the 1st graduation period at a public university was considered. The relative constructions of the students were confronted with constructions used in scientific articles published in periodicals qualified by CAPES in the area of ​​Psychology. The study is based on the works of Decat (1999, 2001, 2014) regarding stray/hypotactic sentences. The data show that the graphic sign of the comma is not decisive for the 'explanatory' or 'restrictive' interpretation of the constructions. In some cases, syntactic isolation occurs due to the discursive effect of focus.