The formation of the construction Xmente

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the formation of the construction Xmente (as in rapidamente ´quickly’ and felizmente ´fortunately´) in Portuguese. For this, we take into account the theoretical assumptions of the Usage-based Linguistics Model, concerning the theory of constructionalization/constructional changes, proposed by Traugott e Trousdale (2013), to explain both the formation of new symbolic pairings of form and meaning, new signs of a network in a language, and the changes of different types that can occur in the constructions already presented in this same language. In order to verify the increase in productivity and in schematicity of the construction, we analyzed, among other factores, the type frequency of the adjectives connected to mente and the semantic of the verbs which are modifi ed by the construction Xmente.