Cognition, grammaticalization and syntactic change: the emergence of compound tenses in Portuguese

Abstract

This article analyzes the historical process of the grammaticalization of aver/ter ‘to have’ in compound tenses, since Portuguese is somewhat isolated among Romance languages in this respect. Our research has shown that the change in auer/ter, from indicating possession to acting as auxiliaries, involved a process of recategorization similar to that seen with the verbs “go”, “come” and “have” in some languages, sharing with them a fundamental characteristic: the fact that in one phase of the transition constructions developed which were capable of being interpreted in both ways (expressing both result and time). Thus, as in those languages, the process of recategorizing involves an intermediate step of structural ambiguity whereby a given construction can be interpreted in two different ways. We will try to clarify the gradual process of reanalysis of ter in the medieval period, based on a corpus of original juridical sources (13th – 16th centuries) which we have transcribed, originating from a particularly important centre in medieval Portuguese culture, the monastery of Alcobaça (between Coimbra and Lisbon). The corpus consists of 153 original documents not only from the monastery but also from the outlying areas under its jurisdiction, dating from between 1289 and 1565.