Prepositioned direct object: historiographic study in the grammar of Evanildo Bechara and Rocha Lima

Abstract

This article, based on the theoretical-methodological assumptions of the Historiography of Linguistics, aims to describe the treatment given to the direct object prepositioned in the Modern Portuguese Grammar, by Evanildo Bechara and in the Normative Grammar of the Portuguese Language, by Rocha Lima. To support the research, the research of Altman (2019), Batista (2019), Koerner (1989a, 2014), Kuhn (2013 [1962]), Murray (1998) was used as a theoretical contribution. After the description, it was observed that the phenomenon is described in eight occurrences in Bechara's grammar, of which seven occurrences are mandatory and one is optional. In Rocha Lima's grammar, the phenomenon is described twelve times, five of which are mandatory and seven are optional. After the analyzes, it was observed that the grammarians present both convergent and divergent points in the treatment of the phenomenon. They converge when they share that the phenomenon occurs before tonic oblique pronouns; after verbs that indicate feelings; to avoid duplicity of meaning; when expressions appear that indicate reciprocity; preceding the relative pronoun who; in parallel constructions and associated with a direct pleonastic object. They differ while Rocha Lima understands that the phenomenon occurs in association with the preposition, when it is linked to the word God; when the direct transitive verb is impersonal; in pronouns that refer to people; in names that are preceded by comparative terms; when the direct object precedes the verb; in idiomatic constructions and when you have a preposition with a partitive value.