A SEMANTIC-ENUNCIATIVE STUDY OF THE LEXICAL TRIAD 'MORTO/MORTE/MORRER'
Morto/Morte/Morrer, Utterance, Theory of Predicative and Enunciative Operations, Meaning
This work is inscribed in the research line 'Studies of the Processes of Meaning', of the Stricto Sensu Postgraduate Program in Linguistics at the University of the State of Mato Grosso. It aims to observe the semantic identity of the lexical triad morto (dead)/ morte (death)/ morrer (to die) in an enunciative situation. To do so, we rely on the Theory of Predicative and Enunciative Operations (TOPE) by Antoine Culioli (1990; 1999a; 1999b; 2018) and their followers, especially Zavaglia (2016), Cumpri (2008; 2009; 2012; 2013; 2018), Pria (2013) and Holmo (2008; 2012; 2014). We defend, in line with TOPE's assumptions, that the meanings of morto (dead)/ morte (death)/ morrer (to die) are only stabilized when these units are articulated occurrences (by grammar) to other occurrences within an utterance. This assumption is what makes our central question: the semantic identities of this triad, in terms of opposition to vivo (alive)/ vida (life)/ viver (to live), remain always stable when we look for them in the paraphrastic proliferations of a statement such as " Joãozinho morreu de fome”? Along the same lines, we also seek to write about the diversity of meanings of this triad in idiomatic expressions, proverbs and popular sayings, in order to demonstrate that the crystallizations that put, for example, ‘morte’ (death) and ‘vida’ (life) in a relation of complementarity (opposition) are not always sustained when operations of language take place.