Research protocol on adpositional phrases

Abstract

We present a research protocol designed to investigate the syntactic function of adpositional phrases. This tool is intended to collect data on research already carried out on these phrases. In order to illustrate the use of the proposed methodology, we provide an example of practical use in descriptions of the Apyãwa/Tapirapé indigenous language (Tupi-Guarani branch). The protocol is composed of twenty-five questions, of a morphological, syntactic, pragmatic, semantic and terminological nature, aimed at initially answering a main question —how have adpositional phrases been treated in research: arguments or adjuncts? As a result of its use in more languages, we included the function “predicate” in our questioning, a function also presents in the descriptions and analyses. The elaboration of the protocol was supported by theoretical subsidies of a typological and functionalist nature. Among them, we work with a hypothesis of differentiation between the identified functions, based on the concept of linguistic prototype, that is, that some members of a category exhibit the greatest number of properties that characterize the class to which they belong and that the differentiation between them it is not absolute. This vision is explicit in the document when we propose a scale between predicate, argument and adjunct for the classification of adpositional phrases, based on the formal and functional characteristics identified in the researched languages. According to the results that this methodological approach provides, it is possible to verify if the researches that deal with such phrases provide criteria to understand the distinction between the functions of predicate, argument and adjunct and if such criteria allow typological generalizations. We hope, therefore, to contribute to the identification and possible proposal of grammatical patterns that are cross-linguistically comparable, and also to help standardize research on the subject.