Construções percetivas e ordem de palavras num texto medieval

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to analyse word order in structures with perception verbs (to hear, to feel and to see) with infinitive complements in Old Portuguese. Based on previous work for standard (cf. Gonçalves 1999; Duarte & Gonçalves 2002) and dialectal (Pereira 2012) contemporary European Portuguese, this study highlights the position and shape of the subject of the infinitive clause. It aims to contribute to the study of perception constructions (and, by extension, causative constructions, since they have structural similarities) in the history of Portuguese.

In this paper we also show the benefits of using a syntactic annotation system for the study of grammatical properties of highly specific constructions. The text under analysis is O Livro de José de Arimateia, in the edition of Castro (1984). This text was recently tagged and parsed within the framework of the WOChWEL project, which follows the annotation systems of the team of the Tycho Brahe Corpus, strongly influenced by the annotation of the Penn corpora.