A expressão de valores desiderativos em construções condicionais insubordinadas com [SE AO MENOS] sob um viés cognitivo construcional

Abstract

Insubordinate constructions (ICs), although frequent in both spoken and written language, are often marginalized in grammatical descriptions, frequently treated as atypical uses of fully subordinated clauses. According to Evans (2007), insubordination is a diachronic process in which a clause originally used in a subordinate structure begins to occur independently, without a main clause. Within the domain of ICs, insubordinate conditional constructions (ICCs) stand out. Among them are uses such as “if only I had money...” (se ao menos eu tivesse dinheiro…), which, although formally similar to canonical conditional clauses, convey different meanings, often marked by a semantics of desire or wish. Evans’s (2007) definition does not account for the wide range of functions and meanings these constructions may exhibit. Several studies have shown that ICCs differ from their subordinated counterparts by presenting distinct morphosyntactic patterns and semantic values, as observed by D’Hertefelt (2015) in her analysis of Germanic languages. The author proposes a typology with three subtypes of constructions like [IF ONLY], or [SE AO MENOS] in Portuguese: potential, irrealis, and counterfactual, defined based on the degree of (im)possibility of realizing the expressed desire, which is reflected in their linguistic form. The present study aims to investigate the construction [SE AO MENOS] in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), seeking to describe its formal patterns and meanings, particularly in relation to the expression of desires. The analysis is grounded in Cognitive Construction Grammar (Goldberg, 1995; 2006), which posits a systematic association between form and meaning. The corpus analyzed consists of 1,262 occurrences of the construction, collected from the social media platform Twitter (now X) during the second half of 2021. This platform was chosen for its ability to provide spontaneous and contemporary uses of the construction in an informal digital context. Based on the data, a typology of ICCs with [SE AO MENOS] in BP was proposed, identifying four recurring morphosyntactic patterns, the most frequent verbs in each, and their associated semantic traits, such as desire, criticism, and lamentation. The analysis revealed the presence of the irrealis and counterfactual subtypes in BP, but no instances of the potential subtype were found, according to the criteria defined by D’Hertefelt (2015). Additionally, the corpus includes occurrences conveying ironic or sarcastic meanings, which are not addressed in the original typology. These cases are not classified as a new subtype, but rather as usage instances marked by an additional pragmatic layer, triggered by discourse markers specific to Twitter language. A categorization of such markers is proposed. Finally, the study suggests an expansion of the constructional network of ICs in BP, based on the observed data, in dialogue with the proposal by Coradini (2022). This research aims to contribute to the empirical description of ICCs in Brazilian Portuguese and to reinforce the importance of associating form, meaning, and usage in the analysis of this type of construction.