Abstract

CUNHA, Luís Filipe. Some considerations about the interpretation of the ir (‘go') + infinitive construction. Diacrítica [online]. 2015, vol.29, n.1, pp.147-169. ISSN 0807-8967.

This paper aims to account for the different interpretations that can be associated to the structure ir (‘go') + Infinitive in European Portuguese. In particular, we will distinguish between a quantificational (habitual or frequentative) reading, a prospective reading and an interpretation that we will label “hypothetical”. We will see that the quantificational reading differs significantly in its linguistic behaviour from the other ones, namely in the aspectual and animacy restrictions it imposes and concerning the possibility of projection of a Prepositional Phrase headed by a (‘to') or para (‘to'). So we will argue in favour of the existence of two distinct configurations involving ir (‘go') + Infinitive in the Imperfect, one in which ir (‘go') retains its basic lexical properties and another in which it primarily behaves as a temporal operator, carrying also modal information.

Keywords : semantics; tense; ir (‘go') + Infinitive; Imperfect.

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