What only ‘sozinho’ does and what ‘só’ does alone
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23925/2237-759X2024V55e68538Keywords:
Comitativity, exclusives, semantics.Abstract
This paper analyzes the Brazilian Portuguese words ‘só’ and ‘sozinho’ as distinct modifiers, which ‘só’ is an exclusive modifier and ‘sozinho’ is an (anti-)comitative modifier. We argue that, contrary to what the specialized literature claims, the word 'sozinho' should not be considered analogous to ‘só’, since a theory of exclusivity is not sufficient to explain the semantic phenomena invoked by ‘sozinho’. Throughout this article, we describe the meanings activated by ‘sozinho’ and ‘só’ in Brazilian Portuguese, compare the two words and, finally, provide a proposal for analyzing ‘sozinho’ through a theory of (anti-)comitativity.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Elisa Anju Rodrigues, Renato Miguel Basso
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