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ANALOGIZAÇÃO E O SURGIMENTO DE UMA NOVA CONSTRUÇÃO IDIOMÁTICA COM VÊ/VEJA SE S NO PORTUGUÊS BRASILEIRO

Abstract

This article aims to investigate an idiomatic construction involving the sequence VÊ/VEJA SE S (as in “Vê se domingo é dia de trabalhar” and “Veja se isso é hora de acordar”) in Brazilian Portuguese. The study is grounded in the theoretical framework of Usage-Based Construction Grammar (UBCG) and adopts the constructionist model of language change proposed by Traugott and Trousdale (2013). Methodologically, the research relies on both quantitative and qualitative-interpretative analyses of data extracted from the Corpus do Português. The data show that the construction under investigation, here referred to as the Disagreement Construction, is specialized in expressing the speaker’s rejection or denial of a belief attributed to a Subject of Consciousness (SdC). This construction appears to have emerged in the 20th century through the cognitive process of analogization, modeled after a preexisting idiomatic construction— the Reproach Construction —, which conveys a negative evaluation of a potential behavior attributed to the interlocutor. Through this analysis, the article contributes to the understanding of idiomatic constructions in Brazilian Portuguese and to the theoretical development of the constructionist approach to language change. The findings suggest that analogization functions as a key mechanism in the creation of new form-meaning pairings.