Modalizing uses of [de fato] and [na verdade] in the 21st century: a comparative usage-based analysis

uma análise comparativa baseada no uso

Abstract

This study aims to comparatively analyze the adverbial constructions de fato and na verdade in contemporary Portuguese, focusing on the discursive-pragmatic inferences of their uses as epistemic modalizers that configure function subtypes. We adopt the theoretical and methodological assumptions of Usage-Based Linguistics, according to which language is organized as a network which is sensitive to communicative intentions, interactional context, and to the action of general cognitive processes such as analogy, categorization, and chunking. We collected 200 occurrences of na verdade and 200 of de fato from the “News on the Web” section of the Corpus do Português and analyzed them with regard to the discursive-pragmatic relations they establish between pieces of information in discourse. The results indicate that each construction presents a basic value that expands metaphorically into subtypes distributed along a continuum ranging from a more subjective to a more objective pole. We observed that na verdade prototypically operates in the rectification and updating of discourse, revealing a higher degree of subjectivity, and presents 10 additional subtypes, of which 4 were described. In contrast, de fato tends to objectify a previously subjective point of view, functioning primarily as a marker of assertion, with a higher degree of objectivity, and presents 4 subtypes. Thus, we contribute to the understanding of the subspecializations of meaning of these modalizers and their interactions within the linguistic network.