O significado da indeterminação do Sujeito em português

Helena Feres HAWAD
(Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro)

ABSTRACT: Different theoretical approaches to “indeterminate subject” in Portuguese usually do not take into account the systemic-functional distinction between the structural functions of Subject and Actor. As a result, Subject indeterminacy is treated as equivalent to Actor non-identification. The systemic-functional three-dimensional semantic component, by distinguishing the interpersonal meaning associated with the function of Subject from the ideational meaning associated with the function of Actor, makes it possible to describe more accurately a delicate semantic difference between clauses with clitic “se” and the other lexico-grammatical structures available in Portuguese for non-identification of the Actor. This paper suggests that Subject indeterminacy is a meaning realized exclusively by clitic “se”, not by any of the other lexico-grammatical configurations frequently supposed to be its semantic equivalents. Such meaning may be described as maximum indefiniteness of grammatical person. Unlike the other options for non-identification of the Actor (such as pronoun “alguém”, passive voice or third person plural verb form), clauses with clitic “se” do not make it clear whether speaker or listener are included in the Subject. This semantic property is a resource for construing various meaning effects concerning the author’s and the reader’s involvement, as it is shown by an analysis of newspaper articles and editorials. A systemic-functional approach of this aspect of Portuguese grammar makes it thus possible to identify semantic motivation for linguistic choices which, in other approaches, appear simply to be different ways of saying the same thing.

KEY-WORDS: clitic “se”, Subject, Actor, grammatical person