The semantic values of the prepositions a, até e para in European
Portuguese: the specification of a "telos"
This work presents the semantic analysis of the portuguese prepositions a, até and
para regarding two kinds of constructions: goal of motion verbs + PP's; and manner of
motion verbs + PP's.
In the literature (Talmy 1985, inter alia) it is argued that languages such as English
lexicalise the path and goal of motion in the prepositional phrase, while Romance
languages (e.g. Spanish) express the goal of motion on the verb.
Starting from this undeniably useful descriptive typology, I will show, following
Morimoto (2001), for Spanish, and Folli & Ramchand (2003), for Italian, that a closer
analysis of Portuguese data reveals a much more complicated picture.
Let us consider the examples bellow:
(1) a. O João foi a Genebra.
John goPAST PREP Geneva.
'John went to Geneva = John visited Geneva'.
b. O João foi até Genebra.
John goPAST PREP Geneva.
'John went as far as Geneva'.
c. O João foi para Genebra.
John goPAST PREP Geneva.
John went to Geneva.
(2) a. O João nadou *à margem / para a margem /até à margem.
John swimPAST *PREP the shore / PREP the shore / PREP PREP the shore
'John swimed to the shore / towards the shore / up to the shore.'
b. O João caminhou *à praia / para a praia / até à praia.
John walkPAST *PREP the beach / PREP the beach / PREP PREP the beach
'John walked to the beach / towards the beach / up to the beach.'
(3) a. O João vagabundeou *para Lisboa / até Lisboa.
John wanderPAST *PREP Lisbon / PREP Lisbon
'John wandered towards Lisbon / up until (he was) in Lisbon'
The data presented above provide evidence that the goal of motion verbs – example
(1)  allow combination with all three prepositions (a, para and até), while manner of
motion verbs  examples (2) and (3)  can’t combine with the preposition a. Some of these
verbs can combine both with the prepositions para e até, as shown in (2), while others can’t
– example (3).
Unlike Talmy (1985) suggested, the preposition até, when combined with the
Portuguese/Romance type manner of motion verbs, expresses both path and the telos of
motion.
Furthermore, this approach will provide a heuristics of the prepositions, allowing us
to pursue an abstract representation of the prepositions values. As far as these three
prepositions are concerned, it will be argued that:
 the preposition a associates the term to her right with a boundary;
 the preposition para marks the operation of visée (french.; which means that we
do not envisage anything else but a given place);
 finally, the preposition até marks the operation of scanning.
References
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CAMPOS, M.H.C. (2002) “Questões aspectuais: algumas especificidades do português” in
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CULIOLI, A. (1990) Pour une Linguistique de l’Énonciation, Tome I. Paris: Ophrys.
CULIOLI, A. (1999) Pour une Linguistique de l'Énonciation, Tome II. Paris: Ophrys.
FOLLI, R. & G. Ramchand (2003) "Prepositions and results in Italian and English an
analysis from event decomposition" (ms)
MORIMOTO, Y. (2001) Los verbos de movimiento. Madrid: Visor Libros.
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