Full name: Diogo Oliveira Ramires Pinheiro

Contact information: diogopinheiro@letras.ufrj.br / 44 74 3628-9025

Institution: Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, Brazil)
Short bio: Diogo Pinheiro is a Professor of Linguistics at the Federal University of Rio
de Janeiro (UFRJ, Brazil). His research combines experimental and observational
methods to investigate the linguistic expression of intersubjectivity within a
constructionist approach to grammatical knowledge.
 Intersubjectivity and preemptive interaction in grammatical constructions: the
case of Brazilian Portuguese vê/veja se “see if”

Intersubjectivity has been the focus of much debate in linguistics, having been
understood, amongst other alternatives, as “mutual coordination of cognitive systems”
(Verhagen 2005: 28) and “speaker’s attention to addressee self-image” (Traugott 2010:
32). More recently, three interesting suggestions have been made, namely: (i) that
intersubjectivity involves two different dimensions, referred to as immediate and
extended intersubjectivity (respectively I-I and E-I) (Tantucci 2021); (ii) that I-I
emerges prior to E-I both diachronically and ontogenetically (Tantucci 2021); and (iii)
that intersubjective constructions can be accounted for, within an enactive approach to
cognition (Engel et al. 2013; Clark 1998; Varela et al. 1992), as error-minimization
devices (Bruin and Michael 2018; Clark 2013) that are put to use in the context of
interactional “joint projects” (Clark 1996) (Tantucci and Di Cristofaro 2020).
In this talk, we explore these suggestions by presenting a corpus-illustrated
diachronic analysis of the idiomatic chunks “vê se” and “veja se” (literally, “see if”) in
Brazilian Portuguese (BP). For the analysis, all instances of idiomatic “vê/veja se” in
the Portuguese Corpus: Historical / Genres (Davies and Ferreira 2006) were collected
and analyzed individually. The aim of the analysis was twofold: on the hand, we sought
to systematically account for the “vê/veja se” usages in terms of form-meaning pairings
(i.e., constructions) (Goldberg 1995, 2003; Fillmore, Kay and O’Connor 1988); on the
other hand, we aimed to unveil the diachronic development of these chunks, particularly
with regard to the relevant mechanisms of change.
In sum, the following findings can be highlighted: (i) idiomatic “vê/seja se”
usages must be accounted for in terms of two different grammatical patterns: the
Reminder Construction (e.g. “Vê se me liga!”, literally “See if you call me”), which is
associated to directive speech act, and the Disagreement Construction (e.g. “Vê se isso
são horas”, literally “See if this is an appropriate time”), which is associated to non-
directive speech act; (ii) the Reminder Construction conveys I-I, while the
Disagreement Construction conveys E-I; (iii) the Reminder Construction emerges in the
19th century, while the Disagreement Construction emerges in the 20 th century; (iv) the
mechanisms of change responsible for the historical emergence of each construction are
different: reanalysis for the Reminder Construction and analogy for the Disagreement
Construction; and (v) both constructions can be insightfully accounted for, within an
action-oriented approach to cognition, as devices aimed at preemptively tackling “joint
project problems” (Clark 1996).
Two main theoretical implications stand out. On the on hand, the diachronic
analysis provides additional evidence for the existence of two distinct dimensions of
intersubjectivity as well as for the proposed directionality of language change regarding
those dimensions (Tantucci 2021). On the other hand, the detailed description of the
constructions suggests the usefulness of the 4Es approach to linguistic analysis while at
same time, and conversely, serving as linguistic evidence for 4E cognition.
Clark, A. (1998). Being there. Putting brain, body and world together again.
Cambridge: CUP.

Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of
cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36(3). 181–204.

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Davies, M. and Ferreira, M. (2006-). Corpus do Português: Historical Genres.

Available online at http://www.corpusdoportugues.org/hist-gen/

Engel, A., K., Friston, K. J. & Kragic, D. (2014). Where’s the action? In A. K. Engel,
K. J. Friston & D. Kragic (eds.), The pragmatic turn: Toward action-oriented views in
cognitive science. Cambridge/London: MIT.

Fillmore, C. J., Kay, P. & O’Connor, M. C. (1988). Regularity and idiomaticity in

grammatical constructions: the case of let alone. Language 64(3). 501-538.

Goldberg, A. E. (1995), Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to

Argument Structure. Chicago, Ill./London: University of Chicago Press.

Goldberg, A. E. (2003), Constructions: A new theoretical approach to language. Trends

in Cognitive Sciences 7(5). 219-24.

Tantucci, V. (2021). Language and social minds: The semantics and pragmatics of
intersubjectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tantucci, V. & Di Cristofaro, M. Pre-emptive interaction in language change and

ontogeny: The case of [there is no NP]. Corpus Linguistics and Ling. Theory 17(3).
715-742.

Traugott, E. C. (2010). Revisiting subjectification and intersubjectification. In K.

Davidse & L. Vandelanotte (Eds.), Subjectification, intersubjectification and
grammaticalization (pp. 29–70). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton

Varela, F., Thompson, E. & Rosch, E. 1992. The embodied mind: Cognitive science and
human experience, new edition. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Verhagen, A. (2005). Constructions of intersubjectivity: Discourse, syntax and

cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.