The diachronic trajectory of [[NEM][QUANDO]]

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the diachronic trajectory of the chunk [[nem][quando]] in terms of degrees of integration and contexts for the formation of a possible complex connector. We base our analysis on the assumptions of Cognitive-Functional Linguistics (Furtado da Cunha; Bispo; Silva, 2013; Rosário; Oliveira, 2016), which draws on assumptions from Construction Grammar (Croft, 2001). The data are analyzed based on contexts for linguistic change (Diewald, 2002, 2006; Diewald; Smirnova, 2012) and on the notions of constructionalization/constructional changes (Traugott; Trousdale, 2021[2013]). The occurrences, analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, come from the historical subcorpus of the Corpus of Portuguese (Davies, 2006) and concern the instances in which [nem] and [quando] occur adjacently, used between the 13th and 20th centuries. The results based on the 65 occurrences identified indicate that the chunk is attested in the synchronic stages analyzed, except in the fourteenth century. In the 16th century, the construction displayed greater type productivity and greater contextual gradience. The data were distributed among (i) source context, characterized by the addition of temporal circumstances in a negation context; (ii) atypical context, in two degrees, with structural ambiguity in one of them and the possibility of concessive reading without structural alteration in the other; (iii) critical context, in five degrees, with the recruitment of [nem]_adv, via analogization, and ambiguity between temporal, concessive, comparative, or conditional reading. No isolated or paradigmatic context data were found, suggesting that [nem quando]_conec is not fully constructionalized, due to the rather conventionalized temporal value in the uses of [quando]. The study demonstrates that constructional changes can persist for long periods, specializing in contexts that prepare for constructionalization, which may be restricted due to the ingrained value of certain constructions.