On the semantics of 'pouco' (little/few) and 'um pouco' (a little/few)

this paper discusses the interpretation of expressions ‘pouco’ (‘few’) and ‘um pouco’ (‘a few/little’) from a referential approach of meaning (CHIERCHIA, 2003; among others). First, we aim to describe their syntactic and semantic behavior. After that, we search for the appropriate semantics to be attributed to ‘pouco’, which operates both on the domain of individuals and on the degree domain. In spite of this, there is a general operation that this modifier does (GUIMARÃES, 2007). We propose a semantics for ‘pouco’ which incorporates two aspects already seen in the literature: the value judgment, and the intuition that it means something like ‘less than a contextual standard’. To ‘um pouco’ we advocate a compositional approach.

LOGO: GRAMMATICALIZATION AND SEMANTICS IN MEDIA TEXTS

It is a fact that the study and the correct application of the rules of Portuguese grammar are necessary for the issuer to communicate adequately in most discursive genres. However this same grammar imposes certain rules that now left to be used due to historical developments that pervade any language, now began to be employed so not always equal to those advocated by the normative grammar. Wherefore to understand situations which are not justified by traditional grammar, theories that are sought to assist this understanding. The current adopted will be the Functionalism, which promotes linguistic analysis beyond established by normative grammar, it covers other aspects not considered by her. Looking enlarger the discussions about the different uses, this study is aimed at ascertaining what is mentioned by the normative and functionalists studies with respect to the word logo, traditionally defined as a coordinating conjunction conclusive. Furthermore, we seek to show the process of grammaticalization whereby the term came and expose the different semantic relations that he can express in language use. To prove this, was used everyday examples, took out from media texts, such as magazine Isto É and the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

USING SEMANTICS AS A WAY TO UNDERSTAND TEXTUAL GENRES

This paper examines the perception of the characteristics of a set of Textual Genres based on Linguistic Analysis, drawing on a Textual Linguistics investigation and offering Semantics considerations as support. This is an attempt to show how relevant semantic investigations are to extend a perception on the characteristics of Textual Genres, without excluding pragmatic and discourse elements. The texts analyzed in this study were taken from a questionnaire designed to assess freshman and senior university students from courses of Bachelor of Arts in Language, in terms of knowledge about different Textual Genres and their characteristics. The analyses focus on the semantic elements that act in respect of question and answer in the questionnaire, and which include: A Semantics-Pragmatics interface, the considerations of the propositional calculus, the theories of tense and aspect of verbal and semantic primitives. On these terms, it is set a relationship between the cognitive mechanisms that operate in the production and reception of texts and a look at the functions that organize semantic text processing. The main analysis in this paper will concern the interface of Textual Linguistics, from authors as Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) and Adam (2011), with Semantic investigations in terms of meaning processing.

The denouncement in the social textualization by interweavement of significant materialities

In this paper I analyse the discursive mechanics on a scene of the Brazilian film Ó paí, ó! , directed by Monique Gardenberg and based on Marcio Meirelles's play. As a start I reckon that the film textualises the social aspects parting from the relation between humour and denunciation. This relation mirrors at another one: the one between art and resistence, which is broadcast on the common  sense as well as on the theoretical-political and artistical field. I reckon humour as the expression of both exaggeration and irony that is formulated by the interweavement of images, gestures, sounds and text. The denunciation, however, is viewed as the textualisation of the conflict, once there is an element of denouncement in the play (as well as in the film), since it intends to portrait the situation of the inhabitants of Pelourinho (a historical neighbourhood in Salvador) during the 90's. This was the period when the neighbourhood was under refurbishment, motivated by touristic interests. The analysis is done under the analytical and theoretical premises of the Discourse Analysis, on a materialist perspective. I also use the notions of interdiscourse, resistence and denunciation against the analytical notions of intradiscourse and discursive memory. I believe to be able to show how the visual formulations textualise social aspects, considering the intersection between humour and denunciation as an axis of sustainability of these formulations.