1. Introduction

The structure estar por (literally, ‘be by’) + infinitive in European Portuguese, illustrated in sentences (1)–(3), displays several syntactic and semantic restrictions that deserve particular attention. As we will see, this construction shares some of its main properties with the so-called adjectival passives, built with the copular verbs estar/ficar + past participle (cf. Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou, 2008; Duarte & Oliveira, 2010; Embick, 2004; Levin & Rappaport, 1986; McIntyre, 2013; Nunes, 2023; Sleeman, 2011). However, its meaning is quite different since it does not point to a resultative state but to the current non-occurrence of a given situation, that is, the “not-yet” actualisation of the event in the infinitive, which, however, is somehow expected to occur in a later interval.¹

Peres and Móia (1995, sections 3.1.2.3 and 3.2.3) consider the construction estar por [and other similar configurations, such as encontrar-se por (literally, ‘find oneself by’), ficar por (literally, ‘get/become by’) or continuar por (literally, ‘continue by’)] as part of a subclass of passive constructions they term “infinitive passives”.²

At first glance, we can see that, in these sentences, (i) the nominal expressions that occupy the subject position are base-generated as the internal arguments of the main verbs and (ii) the situations described – namely the formalisation of the independent candidacy for the White House in (1), the sale of a quarter of the BPA’s share capital in (2) and the identification of the perpetrator of the crime in (3) – have not yet arisen at the time at which the sentences are uttered, although, in some extent, they are expected to occur.

The primary purpose of this paper is to describe the linguistic behaviour of the structure estar por + infinitive, aiming to find its position in the aspectual domain of European Portuguese since, as we will see, its interpretation is intimately related to concepts such as telicity and resultativity.

In order to achieve this goal, I will firstly, in section 2, establish a close comparison between the structure estar por + infinitive and the European Portuguese adjectival passives since they both share relevant syntactic and semantic restrictions. Section 3 will be devoted to the description of the meaning of estar por + infinitive, discussing the fact that it primarily conveys the non-realisation of a given eventuality. In section 4, taking as our starting point the theoretical aspectual treatment set by Moens (1987) and by Moens and Steedman (1988), we will examine the configuration under analysis according to its semantic properties, defining the aspectual constraints that lead us to determine its input and output; such characterisation will allow us to differentiate the construction at issue from other aspectual operators and from sentential negation, which will ultimately contribute to a better understanding of its aspectual profile. The paper concludes with some final remarks in section 5.

2. Estar por + infinitive vs. adjectival passives

Although they have different meanings, the construction estar por + infinitive – as well as some other structures that Peres and Móia (1995) group under the class of infinitive passives – and the so-called adjectival passives with estar + past participle share a number of common linguistic properties and behaviours that deserve our attention.

First of all, as noted, e.g., by Levin and Rappaport (1986), Embick (2004) or by García-Pardo (2016, 2017), in line with all passive constructions, the subjects of adjectival passives are necessarily base-generated inside the VP, i.e., they correspond to the direct objects of the verbs underlying the past participles. As a consequence, only past participles of transitive (cf. (4)) and unaccusative (cf. (5)) verbs, but never of intransitive ones (cf. (6)) may occur in these environments:

The very same syntactic restrictions seem to apply to the construction estar por + infinitive (cf. Peres and Móia, 1995), as the following examples suggest:

Examples like (7)–(9) show us that, similarly to adjectival passives with estar, the structure estar por + infinitive, as is well known from the literature, obligatorily takes the underlying direct object of the verb in the infinitive as the subject of the sentences in which it appears, which is confirmed by its ungrammaticality in the context of intransitive verbs.

However, this is not the only restriction that brings together the two constructions we are analysing.

In fact, as noted by Cunha and Ferreira (2004) and Duarte and Oliveira (2010), in addition to the syntactic constraints we have already mentioned, adjectival passives with estar are sensitive to the aspectual properties of the verbs from which the past participles are derived. In particular, because they account for consequent or resultant states, these constructions are only compatible with telic predicates, namely culminated processes and culminations.⁹

In this sense, even if the syntactic prerequisites are met, past participles derived from states and processes are typically ruled out from the configuration at hand (cf. (10)–(11)), unlike those related to culminated processes and culminations, which are unproblematically accepted (cf. (12)–(13)).

Likewise, the structure estar por + infinitive seems equally sensitive to the aspectual profile of the basic predications from which it is built. Much like the adjectival passives with estar, it is only compatible with culminations and culminated processes, normally rejecting states and processes. In effect, the examples in (14)–(17) clearly parallel those in (10)–(13) as far as the selection of aspectual classes is concerned.

Finally, Duarte and Oliveira (2010), based on work developed by Embick (2004) and Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (2008), point out that there is a systematic alternation between the copula verbs estar (‘be’) and ficar (‘get’, ‘become’, ‘stay’) in the context of constructions expressing resultativity, as the contrast between (18)–(19) and (20)–(21) reveals:¹⁴

According to the above-mentioned authors, adjectival passives with estar are purely stative, in that they strictly focus on the consequences that follow the underlying eventualities. On the other hand, the parallel structures with ficar preferentially express not only the resultant state but also the dynamic transition leading to it.

Examples (22) and (23) illustrate this point: (22), in which estar appears, is compatible with a durative temporal adverbial, whose presence is characteristic of states, but it sounds somehow odd when a punctual adverbial is involved; on the other hand, (23) can occur both with a punctual adverbial, in which case the eventive portion, i.e., the culmination that precedes the consequences, is focused on, and with durative adverbials, in which case it is the resultant state that is in view. Moreover, note that adjectival passives with estar typically occur with the presente do indicativo (‘simple present’) or the pretérito imperfeito (‘imperfect’), tenses that canonically supply stative readings (cf. Cunha, 2007; Ilari, Oliveira & Baço, 2016; Oliveira, 1990, 2013; Oliveira & Lopes, 1995), while the corresponding constructions with ficar prefer the pretérito perfeito (‘terminative simple past’), a tense that is mainly used with event predicates.

Such alternation can also be found when we consider the estar por + infinitive and the ficar por + infinitive constructions. In fact, both estar por and ficar por are well-formed configurations in EP, as the following examples, taken from the corpus CetemPúblico, illustrate, and they share most of their semantic properties, as we will discuss later.

Despite the proximity between the two constructions under discussion, it is noteworthy to stress that significant differences still remain. For example, adjectival passives are much less restricted with respect to the thematic role played by the noun phrase in their subject position. While both configurations occur unproblematically with subjects that play the thematic role of patient, as illustrated in (28)–(29), only adjectival passives appear without difficulties combined with experiencer subjects, unlike the estar por structure, which is generally not allowed in this type of context, as the comparison between (30) and (31) suggests.¹⁷

The central meaning associated with each of these constructions is also very disparate. As we have already mentioned, adjectival passives typically refer to the occurrence of a consequent state that somehow follows an implicit or explicit culmination. The structure estar por + infinitive, on the other hand, intrinsically expresses the non-occurrence of the given situation. In the next section, we will turn our attention to the semantic contribution that the construction estar por + infinitive makes to the sentences in which it appears.

3. The meaning of estar por + infinitive

Sentences containing the structure estar por typically deny the occurrence of the eventuality expressed by the predicate in the infinitive in a given relevant interval (typically, the speech time), somehow implying the expectation that it will possibly take place in the future. The following examples illustrate:

Sentence (32) says, roughly, that, at the speech time, the IC3 project is unapproved; parallelly, (33) states that the odyssey of clandestine Portuguese emigrants to America is not yet written at the time of the utterance and (34) that the insurance policies for seven public hygiene vehicles have not been paid.

Note that the structure estar por + infinitive does not convey prospective aspect nor a preliminary phase, i.e., a period of time that immediately precedes the happening of a given situation, leading to its subsequent occurrence,¹⁸ as proposed for the construction estar para (literally ‘be to’) + infinitive in European Portuguese, since it is not required that the relevant eventuality will ever occur in a later interval.

Moreover, estar por cannot combine with temporal adverbials that explicitly refer to the (basic) event associated to the verb in the infinitive, as shown in (35) :

In this example, the temporal adverbials daqui a meia hora (‘in half an hour’) and às duas da tarde (‘at two in the afternoon’) are meant to refer to the basic event associated with the infinitive, a culmination expressing the birth of the wildebeest calf. Their exclusion from the estar por + infinitive configuration suggests that the possible occurrence of the eventive situation is not a core ingredient of its meaning but, perhaps, merely a conversational implicature that can easily be cancelled.

In effect, the construction estar por + infinitive is perfectly compatible with the withdrawing of the actualisation of the relevant event, suggesting that the fulfilment of the situation involved is somehow facultative and, thus, not part of its invariant meaning, constituting, as we suggested earlier, a kind of cancellable conversational implicature (cf. (36)).

In this view, I diverge from analyses, such as those developed by Burguera Serra (2013) for the parallel structures in Spanish¹⁹ (and also Alzamora (2018) for EP), which assume that both estar por and estar para + infinitive manifest as their permanent meaning the rise of a preparatory phase, differing only with regard to a set of modal-based discursive values that would make it possible to differentiate their various readings in specific contexts. Conversely, I will assume here that, regardless of discursive and pragmatic factors that may condition the particular interpretations of each of these operators, their semantic characterisation is essentially different: estar para + infinitive describes a preliminary phase leading to the occurrence of a given eventuality, whereas estar por + infinitive refers to the negation of a consequent state. However, I agree with several observations made by Burguera Serra, namely that both estar para and estar por describe stative predications and that estar por involves, in one way or another, the non-occurrence of the situation represented by the infinitive form.

So far, we have seen that the structure estar por + infinitive (i) takes as its subject the internal argument of the main verb (cf. Peres & Móia, 1995); (ii) is restricted to combining with telic predicates (culminated processes and culminations), and (iii) denies the occurrence of the basic eventuality with which it conjoins at the relevant interval, typically carrying out a conversational implicature about the subsequent occurrence of the situation represented in the infinitive.

Property (ii) suggests that an aspectual treatment of the construction under analysis could help to understand its linguistic behaviour. In the next section of this paper, I will, therefore, propose an aspectual characterisation for the configuration at hand.

4. Towards an aspectual characterisation of the structure estar por + infinitive

If, as we have just seen, aspectual factors play a crucial role in the semantic characterisation of the structure estar por + infinitive, it is essential to investigate in more detail to what extent they contribute to establishing its meaning. Therefore, in this section, following the theoretical proposals made by Moens (1987), Moens and Steedman (1988), de Swart (1998), and, specifically for European Portuguese, by Cunha (2007) or Oliveira et al. (2004), I will try to determine the appropriate aspectual input and output for this construction.

It is assumed, in the framework we are undertaking here, that when a given operator induces a specific aspectual change, it takes as its input a predication of a basic aspectual class, its input, and converts or coerces it into another derived one with different internal temporal properties, its output. Let us consider how this general schema can be applied to the structure estar por + infinitive.

As we have previously pointed out, the structure estar por + infinitive is restricted to cooccur with culminations and culminated processes, giving rise to anomalous sequences when combined with states and processes, even if the other prerequisites for its presence are met (cf. examples (14)–(17), repeated here for convenience as (37)–(40)); this means that, ultimately, it must take as its input a telic predication.

Concerning its output, we observed that, like most configurations involving the verb estar (‘be’) in Portuguese, the structure estar por + infinitive gives rise to situations displaying a stative behaviour. In fact, the construction under analysis meets several criteria that have been mentioned in the literature for identifying this aspectual class (cf. Binnick, 1991; Cunha, 2007; Dowty, 1979; Moens, 1987; Smith, 1997; Vendler, 1967).

First, like statives and differently from events, the construction estar por + infinitive canonically receives a temporal reading of “actual present” (and not one of habituality or quantification over situations) when combined with the presente do indicativo (‘simple present tense’). Like other configurations with stage-level states [cf. O João está doente habitualmente (‘João is habitually sick’)], habitual / quantificational readings are also compatible with estar por, but they are not preferential. Compare the following examples:

Although compatible with a habitual reading, since it describes a stage-level predicate, sentence (41), in the absence of more specific contextual information, is meant to describe a situation in which João’s bed is currently not made, i.e., it receives preferably a temporal reading in which the state associated with the (denied) eventuality is taking place at the time of utterance. On the other hand, (42), in which the predicate occurs in its basic eventive reading, is instead interpreted as a habit or a recurrent action performed by João.

Second, even when the basic predicates are culminations, thus basic punctual situations, the structure estar por + infinitive consistently receives a durative interpretation, confirming its ability to perform an aspectual coercion, as the following example shows:

Notice that, in European Portuguese, an adverbial like há Q tempo combined with stative predicates in a sentence with the presente do indicativo (‘simple present’) establishes an initial boundary from which the length of the interval occupied by the whole situation is calculated and measured out (constituting the utterance time its endpoint). In other words, in the environment presented above, há Q tempo manifests properties of a durative time measurement adverbial, being translated in English as ‘for Q time’ (cf. Móia, 2000). As shown in (44), this interpretation does not extend to events, which typically give rise to semantic anomaly in similar contexts.

Except if we are able to ascribe a progressive reading to this sentence – which is stative by nature –, the durational interpretation of the adverbial há Q tempo is simply ruled out with such events. So, the cooccurrence of this adverbial in its durative reading with the structure estar por + infinitive suggests that it displays a state as its output.

Another piece of evidence pointing to the stative nature of the structure estar por + infinitive can be seen in the following contrasts:

Unlike the basic events presented in (46) and (48), which are compatible, respectively, with an adverbial that identifies the interval with the overall length of the situation (cf. the culminated process in (46)) or with a punctual adverbial (cf. the culmination in (48)), the construction estar por + infinitive only admits simple duration adverbials introduced by durante N tempo (‘for N time ’), rejecting the adverbials predictably selected by the primary predicates from which it is obtained.

All the facts just discussed point to a state-like behaviour of the structure estar por + infinitive, indicating that its output is assuredly stative.

Given that it takes as its input a telic predicate (be it a culmination or a culminated process) and as its output a state, what is, then, the semantic contribution performed by the structure estar por + infinitive?

As we have seen, estar por + infinitive is meant to deny the occurrence of the eventuality associated with the infinitive form with which it combines. This fact may help to explain its stative behaviour. In effect, as several authors point out (e.g., Cunha, 2003, 2007; de Swart, 1996; Horn, 1989; Verkuyl, 1993), there is a strong connection between sentential negation and stativity. The compatibility of negated sentences of all aspectual classes with durative for-adverbials (cf. (49)), the measurement reading of the adverbial há Q tempo with the simple present tense (cf. (50)), as well as the inconsistency with aspectualisers such as acabar de (‘finish’) or parar de (‘stop’) (cf. (51)–(52))²⁰ suggest that negative sentences share relevant properties with lexical statives.

Since both sentential negation and the structure estar por + infinitive serve mainly to deny the occurrence of a given situation, it is not surprising that they share some semantic features; in particular, both seem to induce a behaviour close to that of statives in the predications with which they combine.²³

Does this mean that the two configurations under analysis act semantically in the same way? The answer is obviously no, because there is a substantial difference between them. As we have seen, the structure estar por + infinitive can only appear in combination with telic predicates, while sentential negation does not present any specific requirements concerning the aspectual class of the situations with which it co-occurs.

It is, therefore, crucial to investigate the impact that the input selection may have on the final interpretation of the structure estar por + infinitive.

In view of the observed aspectual restrictions, we cannot simply say that the function of estar por + infinitive is to deny that any eventuality is taking place at a given time interval; somehow, the resultative states associated with the basic telic predications must be taken into account, which, additionally, would explain the similarities, described in section 2, between this construction and adjectival passives.

At first glance, the hypothesis that would seem most obvious would be that a covert negation operator at the semantic level triggered by the construction estar por + infinitive would fundamentally affect the consequent states associated with the relevant basic predications. That is, contrary to what happens with “regular” sentential negation, the negative operator associated with estar por would obligatorily take in its scope the resultant state connected with the predication in the infinitive.

This requirement would explain the oddity of the combination of estar por with basic processes: even if all syntactic requirements are met, the absence of a consequent state would rule out the construction at issue.

In order to evaluate the adequacy of this proposal, it is crucial to investigate the behaviour of sentences involving a basic culminated process. Consider the following examples, adapted from the CetemPúblico corpus:

The acceptability of a follow-up like the one represented in sentence (53) shows that the structure estar por + infinitive can be employed even in cases where the preparatory process of the basic predication is already in course. A similar observation can be extended to a sentence like (54): in order for people to be able to move into the houses that are under construction, part of the preparatory process regarding their building must have taken place.

Thus, data like those provided by the above examples leads us to conclude that, ultimately, the configuration estar por + infinitive applies essentially to the consequent state and not necessarily to the entirety of the basic situation with which it combines.²⁴

This proposal seems to be confirmed by the analysis of sentences that combine the structure estar por + infinitive with the pretérito perfeito do indicativo (henceforth PPerf), a terminative past tense in European Portuguese. Although not so frequent as those in the present tense, these sequences can be found in our corpus and other EP texts, as the following examples show:

Now, if, in sentences like these, due to the semantics of the PPerf, which imposes some kind of terminativity (cf. the proposal in Cunha, 2023 for the treatment of the PPerf, based on observations made by Kamp & Reyle, 1993; Peres, 1993; Reichenbach, 1947), the negated resultant state is obligatorily closed in the past, we will infer that a change of state must take place thereafter. The most plausible candidate to ensure the end of the negated consequent state is the underlying situation represented by the infinitive. In order for the absence of a resultant state at a given time to come to an end, such a state must somehow take place after the relevant interval. Since its bringing about depends on the actualisation of the culmination to which it is attached, the whole event should arise to ensure its occurrence. This reasoning seems to be confirmed by the facts, as illustrated in the following contrast:

On the other hand, the semantic contribution of the structure estar por + infinitive, as we have said, can be described as the negation of the occurrence of a given resultant state.

Combining the above-mentioned ingredients, we get the following conditions for the semantics of the structure estar por + infinitive in the PPerf:

(59) says that a given resultant state, provided by the infinitive part of the configuration, does not occur at a past interval t1 and that such denied state ends at a subsequent past time t2 that serves as its final boundary. Thus, this formulation entails that immediately after t2 the underlying situation must arise in order to actualise the resultant state at issue.

In short, the structure estar por + infinitive combined with the PPerf entails the occurrence of the basic situation with which it combines since it is the most natural way of ensuring the end of a denied resultant state.²⁶

The conjoining of estar por with the PPerf (as well as with other terminative past tenses, such as the pluperfect) is particularly revealing in that, by imposing a final boundary on the negated consequent state, they emphasise the crucial role played by the predication associated with the infinitive form. However, as we have already mentioned, the structure estar por appears preferentially with the presente do indicativo (‘simple present’) or the pretérito imperfeito (‘past imperfect’) tenses. In these cases, and as expected, the negated resultative state can extend indefinitely in time, and the actualisation of the event associated with the infinitive appears only as an inference, possibly as a conversational implicature. When it occurs with the present tense, this implicature is oriented through the future; when it combines with the imperfect, this implicature refers to an interval that obligatorily follows the past Temporal Perspective Point of the stative predication.

The behaviour of estar por + infinitive in the PPerf sharply contrasts with that of the structure estar para + infinitive. Compare the following two sentences:

As shown in (61), the structure estar para + infinitive, contrary to estar por, does not entail (and, indeed, combined with measure adverbials like for N time, seems to forbid) the actualisation of the situation associated with the infinitive form. This behaviour can be explained if we assume, following, e.g., Burguera Serra (2013) or Cunha (2024), that the structure estar para + infinitive describes a preliminary state that precedes the occurrence of a given eventuality.

Now, applying the PPerf to this kind of construction, we get as a consequence that the preliminary state comes to its end in a past interval; since it is a previous part of the eventuality with which it cooccurs, its cessation means that the situation will not pursue its expected course.

It should be noted that, in general terms, the occurrence of a preliminary state, unlike a resultant one, does not necessarily imply the actualisation of the situation associated with the infinitive since it can be interrupted even if that eventuality never takes place (indeed, even before its beginning).

The interpretative distinctions observed between the constructions estar por and estar para + infinitive, therefore, seem to result from the different phases of the aspectual nucleus to which they apply: whereas estar por involves (the negation of) a consequent state, estar para refers to a preliminary state.

5. Final remarks

The main goal of this paper was to describe the linguistic behaviour of the structure estar por + infinitive, trying to elucidate some of the semantic properties behind this construction.

The syntactic and semantic similarities that arise between estar por + infinitive and the so-called adjectival passives – particularly the requirement of a basic telic predicate as its input category – lead us to consider that its meaning somehow involves the emergence of a resultant state.

Some facts that are well-known from the literature were confirmed and deeply discussed, namely, (i) the idea that the subject of constructions with estar por is associated with the internal argument of the infinitival verb that follows it, i.e., that these constructions belong to the family of the passive (or possibly also, inaccusative) constructions lato sensu (cf. Peres & Móia, 1995); (ii) the construction has an intrinsic negative component; as the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea [‘Dictionary of the Contemporay Portuguese Language’], for instance, states “[estar] seguido de um verbo no infinitivo precedido da prep. por, indica que a ação expressa pelo verbo ainda não foi executada” [estar followed by preposition por indicates that the action represented by the verb was not yet performed]. The intimate relation between estar por and the denial of the situation in the infinitive was already pointed out in the semantic literature (cf. Burguera Serra, 2013).

One fact, perhaps not so clearly (or explicitly) stated in the literature, was underlined and explored here, and is assumed as perhaps the most original contribution of this paper: the fact that estar por (contrary to e.g., estar + past participle) only combines regularly with descriptions of telic eventualities, not with descriptions of activities or states.

Finally, the fact that constituents headed by estar por have stative properties, which is unsurprising given the stative nature of estar (and other structures in which this verb occurs), was extensively demonstrated. Therefore, estar por + infinitive takes descriptions of telic situations as its input, expressing the non-occurrence of their resultant states as its output, hence giving rise to stative predications.

Before closing, I would like to stress that many questions remain open for future work. For instance, a detailed analysis of the structure ficar por (‘get/become’) + infinitive is deserved, as well as a systematic comparison between estar por (‘be by’) + infinitive and other configurations containing the verb estar in European Portuguese. Moreover, other constructions pertaining to the so-called infinitival passive class, like continuar por (‘continue by’) or permanecer por (‘remain by’), ask for a careful analysis in order to understand the similarities and distinctions regarding their linguistic behaviour.

Acknowledgements

This work is sponsored by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P.: Centro de Linguística da Universidade do Porto – UID/00022. I would therefore like to thank both the Centre for Linguistics of the University of Porto and FCT for their support, which has enabled me to carry out this research. I would also like to thank my colleagues at CLUP, especially the group on semantics, for the fruitful discussions we had. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to two anonymous reviewers from the Journal of Portuguese Linguistics for their comments and improvements to this article.

Funding Information

Centro de Linguística da Universidade do Porto (Centre for Linguistics of the University of Porto), Unidade da FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., Projeto UIDB/00022/20.

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.