You could be a sex symbol and still have bad teeth: a construção do significado dos conectores and, but e or sob a perspectiva da gramática cognitiva

Abstract

This work addresses the coordinated constructions of the English language, integrated by the connectors and, but, and or, from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics (Goldberg, 1995, 2006; Langacker, 1987, 1991, 2008, 2009; Talmy, 2003a; 2003b;), focusing on the meaning relationships established by the constructions integrated by these connectors. We argue, based on Cognitive Grammar, that the relationship of independence between coordinated clauses is supported by mental processes of meaning construction, more precisely by the relationships between conceptual domains (Langacker, 1987, 2008, 2009), windows of attention (Talmy, 2003b; Langacker, 2009), and ground-figure relationships (Talmy, 2003a; 2008; Tsilimos, 2020). Furthermore, the perspective (Langacker, 2009) contributes to the construal (Langacker, 1991; Verhagen, 2005) of the scene to be described from a discursive-pragmatic perspective. Likewise, we argue that the concepts of attention windows, grounding, and conceptualization demonstrate that the linguistic analysis of the phenomenon of coordination between clauses (Langacker, 2008, 2009) is not isolated from the discursive context in which it is present, because they are apprehended through a gestalt access that can be simultaneous, sequential, or alternating (Langacker, 1987). The methodology is quantitative-qualitative in nature (Creswell, 2010), with COCA as the study corpus; and the AntConc program (Anthony, 2021) was selected for analysis and selection of occurrences. The proposed analyses take into account the assumptions of Corpus Linguistics (Berber Sardinha, 2000, 2004) for collecting the data to be studied. The connectors but, and, and or within each event with coordinated clauses were chosen as the object of analysis. The results of the study indicate that Gestalt accesses, argumentative orientation, and discourse levels (Sweetser, 1990) evidence a break from the prototypical meaning of the connectors, with the influence of encyclopedic knowledge and cognitive relations between conceptual domains (Langacker, 1987, 2008, 2009) prevailing in the construction of meaning, as well as the ground-figure relations that compose each event. Similarly, cognitive processes such as attention windows, configurational domains, and conceptualization demonstrate that the use of operators is not restricted to explaining items in isolation, but rather to the relationships between sets. Through operators, they demonstrate the gestalt access of the statement. Intersubjective processes of discursive-argumentative orientation (Verhagen, 2005), characterized by construals, influence the conceptualization of the scene, highlighting the discursive relationship established between coordinated segments and operators.