Abstract
In this paper we intend to perform a contrastive analysis of modal particle occurrences (hereinafter PM) in German, Catalan, Croatian, French and English, proposing a class of PM for Brazilian Portuguese. We start from the theoretical framework based on pragmatics and functionalist theories as support. Our main objective is to defend the existence of PMs in Brazilian Portuguese, being they linguistic-discursive resources used with the function of modifying non-explicit information during the interaction. In this sense, PMs would activate assumptions in utterances based on nuclear meanings. This is an unprecedented study for proposing analysis of words and phrases that have not yet been classified as such in Portuguese-Brazilian grammars. This study is justified by the difficulty that these PM present both for teaching additional language and for translation. Investigating and describing German PMs and their functional equivalents in Portuguese can therefore provide avenues for understanding important pragmatic issues for communicative exchanges and their uses in the classroom. Finally, we hypothesize that, although there is a clear difference in the classification of these particles in many languages, the communicative functions of German PMs may find similar interpretative and even functional equivalents in Brazilian Portuguese.
Keywords:
German modal particles; modality in Portuguese language; contrastive analysis