Concessive constructions with ‘por mais que’: a functional-discourse approach

ABSTRACT Following Functional Discourse Grammar model principles (Hengeveld & Mackenzie, 2008), this paper describes concessive constructions with the conjunction por mais que. Using contemporary Portuguese data, from Corpus do Português (Davies & Ferreira, 2016), this investigation pursues two specific objectives: (i) determining the status of por mais que considering a set of FDG proposals concerning the lexical/grammatical status of adverbial conjunctions; and (ii) mapping, based on FDG levels and layer, the different concessive relations signaled by this conjunction in articulating clauses. It is argued that por mais que is a Lexical Conjunction, analyzed, at Representational Level, as a one-place Configurational Property, and that it articulates three types of concessive relations: factual concessive, conditional-concessive and restrictive concessive.

摘要 本文遵循功能话语语法（Functional Discourse Grammar，以下简称FDG）模型的核心原则（Hengeveld与Mackenzie，2008），以连词por mais que构成的让步构式为研究对象。本研究采用《葡萄牙语语料库》（Corpus do Português，Davies & Ferreira, 2016）收录的当代葡萄牙语语料数据，旨在实现两项具体研究目标：其一，结合FDG关于状语连词词汇-语法地位的一系列相关提案，明确por mais que的语言地位；其二，基于FDG的层级与层面，梳理该连词在连接分句时所标记的各类让步语义关系。本文论证指出，por mais que属于词汇连词（Lexical Conjunction），在表征层面（Representational Level）被分析为一元配置属性（one-place Configurational Property），且其可连接三类让步语义关系：事实性让步、条件性让步与限制性让步。