Expression of cause, evidence, justify and motivation rhetorical relations by causal hypotactic clauses in Brazilian Portuguese

Juliano Desiderato Antonio

doi:10.4025/actascilangcult.v34i2.13362

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the expression of cause, evidence, justify and motivation rhetorical relations by means of causal hypotactic clauses in formal oral discourse (university lectures and interviews with academic researchers) in Brazilian Portuguese. The investigation is based on Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), a theory of text organization which describes the implicit relations that arise from the combination of parts of texts. The identification of these relations was based on a parameter from Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG): layers of representational and interpersonal levels. From interpersonal level, layers move and discourse act were used. From representational level, layers propositional content and states of affairs were employed. Non-volitional cause relations are established by clauses conveying states of affairs, volitional cause relation is established by clauses conveying propositional contents. Justify relation and evidence relation are established by clauses conveying discourse acts (in evidence relation an instance of what was stated in the nucleus portion is provided in the satellite portion). Finally, motivation relation is established by clauses conveying a motivation subsidiary discourse act.

Highlights

Naming or classifying semantic relations pertaining to cause domain has always been a thriving issue in language studies
This paper aims at investigating the expression of cause, evidence, justify and motivation rhetorical relations by means of causal hypotactic clauses in formal oral discourse in Brazilian Portuguese
The investigation is based on Rhetorical Structure Theory ( RST), a theory of text organization which describes the implicit relations that arise from the combination of parts of texts (MANN; THOMPSON, 1988)

Summary

Introduction

Naming or classifying semantic relations pertaining to cause domain has always been a thriving issue in language studies. The example provided by the author was taken from Hengeveld (1998) and will be repeated here: An illocutionary cause clause “[...] expresses a reason that does not refer to the situation described in the main clause, but to the speech act and, in itself constitutes a speech act” Dik (1997) had already suggested this possibility, assigning functional discourse relations to rhetorical act level (interpersonal) or to subject matter level (representational). For the goals of this paper, entity types of representational and interpersonal levels are an important parameter for the identification of the relations investigated here

Methodology

Motivation relation