The constructional pair "acredita nisso/acredita isso": syntactic distinction in use implies semantic-pragmatic difference

Abstract

This paper investigates semantic-pragmatic distinctions in the "acredita isso/acredita nisso" pair of grammatical constructions in Portuguese, fostered by their syntactic differences and licensed by specific discursive contexts. Given the Cognitive Linguistcs’ theoretical framework, represented here by authors such as Almeida (2010), Croft and Cruse (2004), Ferrari (2011), Goldberg (1995, 2006), Langacker (1999, 2007), Pascual (2014), and Talmy (2000), it postulates that the uses of "acredita isso", common to local counter-expectation contexts, involve a more subjective perspective about the scene evoked, and thus, by triggering the frame of perplexity or admiration, the speaker invokes this to himself rather than the addressee reaction; "acredita nisso", common to experienced counter-expectations and local counterposition contexts, encompasses a more objective perspective on the evoked scene, and by triggering the belief frame, the speaker evokes it for the other. The antecedent term anaphorically taken up by the pronoun “isso” shapes the addressee's conception, in a disjunctive perspective; whereas the antecedent term anaphorically taken up by the pronoun “nisso” shapes the speaker's own conception, in a conjunctive perspective. If the verb "acreditar" falls within the scope of negation, the pronoun “isso” shapes the speaker's own conception, and the pronoun “nisso” shapes the addressee's conception. The hypotheses were raised from data extracted from websites in Portuguese on the internet.