Uma nota sobre o traço de gradatividade: dois tipos de grau em exclamativas-wh do português brasileiro

Abstract

This squib presents an analysis for a conceptual feature of a specific type of exclamative sentence, namely, the gradability feature, typical of wh-exclamatives starting with "que" ‘what’ and "quanto" ‘how much’. By basing my analysis on the cartographic version of the Principles and Parameters Theory ((RIZZI, 1997; CINQUE, 1999), I argue that more than one functional category is necessary to lexicalize the content of this subtype of exclamative. Besides that, I assume, in the vein of Delfito & Fiorin (2014), two types of gradability features, each one associated with a specific type of wh-exclamatives envolved. Thus, que-exclamatives have the E-deg quali feature, while quanto-exclamatives have the E-deg quanti one. In order to give support to the analysis, I bring some data from standard Italian (DELFITO & FIORIN, 2014) which are contrasted with their correspondents in Brazilian Portuguese.