Pragmatic orientation of syntax in spontaneous speech: A corpus-based comparison between Brazilian Portuguese and Italian adverbial clauses

Abstract

This paper reports on the syntax of finite adverbial clauses in spoken Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and Italian (IT), based on C-ORAL-BRASIL and Italian C-ORAL-ROM corpora and founded onLanguage into Act Theory (L-AcT: Cresti 2000). The analysis of adverbial clauses here is mainly focused on the syntax/pragmatics and syntax/information structure interfaces, aiming to show significant differences in the syntax of spoken versus written language.