THE SEMANTIC PROPERTY MOTION IN THE LEXICAL REPRESENTATION OF BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE VERBS

ABSTRACT: In this paper, we (i) describe semantic and syntactic behavior of motion verbs in Brazilian Portuguese, (ii) analyze the lexicalization pattern of these verbs and (iii) determine how motion is represented in the lexical structure of verbs by means of primitive predicates decomposition metalanguage. We propose that all Brazilian Portuguese motion verbs lexicalize the execution of an event instead of the path or manner of motion dichotomy, as proposed in many linguistics papers. However, although motion verbs show the same pattern of lexicalization, they cannot be considered as belonging to a single verb class, because they differ in number and type of their arguments, in their lexical aspect and in their unaccusativity behavior. Thus, Brazilian Portuguese motion verbs are divided, at least, into five different classes. Each class presents its own semantic representation.