Differences and similarities between European and Brazilian Portuguese in the use of the « gerúndio

This paper provides a partial description of the main differences between European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) concerning the use of the «gerúndio». Two rather distinct syntactic and semantic uses of this verb form are focussed: the periphrastic «gerúndio» and the adverbial «gerúndio». The periphrastic «gerúndio» occurs in combination with auxiliary verbs, forming complex sequences of two verbal elements. In modern EP, it tends to fall into disuse after some auxiliary verbs, the uninflected infinitive (preceded by a preposition) emerging instead. This paper identifies and briefly characterises the contexts where this competition «gerúndio»-infinitive takes place. The second kind of «gerúndio» occurs in adverbial clauses, where it may be associated with a wide spectrum of interpropositional semantic values, like cause, result or mood, just to name a few. After a brief semantic characterisation of the adverbial «gerúndio», the main differences between EP and BP involving its use will be described. Among them, those concerning the use of gerundive clauses preceded by the preposition em and, once again, those involving the competition «gerúndio»-infinitive, stand out.


Introduction
This paper provides a partial description of the main differences between European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) concerning the use of the «gerúndio», focussing on two of the main uses of this verb form: the periphrastic «gerúndio» and the adverbial «gerúndio».As will be seen, the grammars of these two forms of the «gerúndio» are substantially different, and the variation between EP and BP in regard to their application is likewise rather distinct.
The structure of the paper is as follows: in section 2, we present a brief review of the basic syntactic and semantic facts about the Portuguese «gerúndio»; in sections 3 and 4, we focus on the different preferences exhibited by EP and BP with respect to the periphrastic and the adverbial «gerúndio», respectively; finally, in section 5, we conclude by highlighting the similarities and differences in the use of the «gerúndio» in the two varieties of Portuguese under examination; among the differences, the tendency, in (at least some varieties of) EP, to avoid the use of the «gerúndio» in some specific contexts, of very high frequency, is certainly prominent.
The data used in this paper is taken basically from two corpora: for European Portuguese, the corpus Natura-Público (henceforth, NP), which contains ca.6.3 million words, taken exclusively from a recent Portuguese newspaper; for Brazilian Portuguese, the corpus NILC-São Carlos (henceforth, NILC), which contains ca.32 million words, 85% of which taken from Brazilian newspapers, and the rest from other sorts of texts.Unless otherwise stated, all quantitative data provided here is taken from these two corpora.In section 4.2, we will use some data from literary texts, taken from the corpus Clássicos da Literatura Portuguesa / Porto Editora v. 1.6 (henceforth, CLP)1 .Given obvious space constraints, texts from the corpora will not be translated, although the relevant expressions are discussed within the text and highlighted in the excerpts.

Basic syntactic and semantic facts about the «gerúndio»
Portuguese «gerúndio» is an invariable verb form2 identified by the suffix -ndo -amando ("loving"), bebendo ("drinking"), dormindo ("sleeping")which often (though not always) corresponds to English -ing forms.It may occur in different syntactic environments and, as will be shown in detail in section 4.1 below, it may be associated with various semantic values.Taking into account the syntactic environments in which it may appear, at least five subtypes of «gerúndio» need be distinguished.

i. INDEPENDENT «GERÚNDIO»
Exceptionally, the Portuguese «gerúndio» may occur in non-embedded sentences, as in some imperatives -(´1) -or in image captions -(2) -, for instance: (1) Andando já para casa! walking already to house 'Go home immediately!' (2) Mulheres vendendo tapetes no mercado [PHOTOGRAPH CAPTION] women selling rugs in-the market 'Women selling rugs in the market' ii. ARGUMENTAL «GERÚNDIO» The «gerúndio» may also be associated with the main verb of sentential arguments of higher predicates, like the verb ver ("see") or a noun like situação ("situation"), in the examples below. (3) A Ana viu [um bicho estranho escavando a terra].the Ana saw an animal weird digging the earth 'Ana saw a weird animal digging the soil.' (4) [Aves chocando contra aviões] não é uma situação rara.birds crashing against airplanes NEG is a situation rare 'Birds crashing into airplanes is not a rare situation.' iii.PERIPHRASTIC «GERÚNDIO» In one of its most common uses, the «gerúndio» co-occurs with (so-called) auxiliary verbs -typically aspectual verbs, like estar ("be"), continuar ("continue") or vir ("come")3 -, forming complex sequences of two verbal elements, as illustrated in ( 5)-( 6).Traditionally, (at least some of) these verbal sequences are referred to as the «periphrastic conjugation» of the verb.By the way, notice that our use of the term «periphrastic» to refer to this subtype of «gerúndio» is merely a simplification, since the «gerúndio» itself, separately considered, is obviously not periphrastic. (5) O país está mudando.
the country is changing 'The country is changing.'(6) Já há muito tempo que eu venho dizendo isso.already there-is much time that I come saying that 'I have been saying that for a long time.' This subtype of «gerúndio» will be dealt with separately in section 3.
iv. ADNOMINAL «GERÚNDIO» Sometimes, the «gerúndio» is associated with the main verb of (sentential) noun modifiers -(7) -or noun appositives -(8).Many traditional grammarians have condemned this form (especially in noun modifiers4 ), but its use is widespread.(7) Foram encontradas várias caixas contendo documentos secretos.From a semantic point of view, the adverbial «gerúndio» appears to be rather distinct from the other forms of «gerúndio».In fact, whereas the issues raised by those other forms seem to be predominantly syntactic or lexical--syntactic, the analysis of the structures with the adverbial «gerúndio» centrally involves the semantics of interpropositional connections, e. g. temporal, mereological, causal, instrumental, conditional or contrastive dependencies.The adverbial «gerúndio» will be dealt with separately in section 4.
One of the most notorious differences between BP and modern EP -at least as spoken nowadays in the Lisbon area 5 -is that the latter resorts to infinitival forms, normally preceded by t he preposition a (or por, in some cases), in many contexts in which the latter uses gerundive forms.This difference has been discussed by many authors, like, recently, Borges Neto & Foltran (2001).The preference for prepositioned infinitival structures i n modern EP affects all five types of «gerúndio» identified above.We will only consider cases with the periphrastic and the adverbial «gerúndio» in this paper, but the other three cases are illustrated below, in (11), where the sequences with prepositioned infinitive -common in EP, but not in BP -are equivalent to those with the independent, the argumental and the adnominal «gerúndio», respectively: (11) a. Mulheres a vender tapetes no mercado [PHOTOGRAPH CAPTION] [equivalent to (2); structure more common in EP] b.A Ana viu um bicho estranho a escavar a terra.
[equivalent to (8); structure more common in EP] It must be stressed that not all instances of the «gerúndio» are at free variance with prepositioned infinitives in EP, though.For instance, sentence (7), unlike (8), cannot occur with the infinitive (possibly due to the same aspectual restrictions that limit the use of the adverbial «gerúndio» -cf.section 4.2 below).In this paper, we will explore this issue only partially, as regards the periphrastic «gerúndio» -in the next section -and the adverbial «gerúndio» -in section 4.

Periphrastic «gerúndio»
Let us, for the sake of illustration of the competition «gerúndio»-infinitive with auxiliary verbs, consider the verb ESTAR, roughly equivalent to the English verb to be in progressive forms.The following two sentences are 5 In some areas of Portugal (e. g. the Alentejo and the Algarve), the use of the «gerúndio» in the relevant type of contexts is very common.Many other auxiliary verbs or complex predicative expressions -though not all, as we will see later on -show a similar tendency, viz. a predominant use of the infinitive in EP and of the «gerúndio» in BP.Among the most common ones, we mention the following four: i. ANDAR (literally: "walk"), semantically similar to estar, but often associated with an habitual value: iii.PASSAR A VIDA (literally: "pass the life"), a relatively informal complex predicate that indicates constant iteration: (16) a. "Totó, o nosso herói, passa a vida a remoer a sua desgraça (...)." (NP, par 30625) [EP] b. "Cigano é um povo que passa a vida viajando e é chamado de nômade."(NILC, par Folhinha-94b-soc-1) [BP] iv.COMEÇAR (literally: "start"), when it indicates the first of a series of events (rather than the beginning of a given situation 6 ), in which case the preposition preceding the infinitive is por; in this particular case, the sequence with the infinitive does not seem so rare in BP as in the previous three cases (the relevant sequence occurring a few dozen times in the BP corpus).( 17 The overall picture of the «gerúndio»-infinitive competition with auxiliary verbs in EP and BP is, however, more complex than the mere consideration of this bunch of verbs might suggest.Other cases, where the above mentioned tendencies for the use of the «gerúndio» or the infinitive are different, need to be considered. First, we consider the case where the «gerúndio» and the infinitive are more or less at free variance in BP (while the preference for infinitive holds in EP).This happens with at least two verbs 7 : i. CONTINUAR (literally: "continue") (18) a. "Portugal deve continuar a defender a aplicação das resoluções internacionais (...)." (NP, par 54755) [EP] b. "A assessoria de Fernando Henrique (...) afirmou que o candidato continua a defender as mesmas propostas."(NILC, par Brasil--94b-pol-2) [BP] b′."Hamlet, apesar da prova obtida (...), continua hesitando." (NILC, par Mais -94a -nd-2) [BP] 6 There are at least two distinct forms of the auxiliary verb começar (cf.e. g.Dascal, 1982): (i) one that identifies the first of a series of events, as in (17) -cf.começou por ler ("started by read INF ") / começou lendo ("started reading"); (ii) one that identifies the beginning of a given situation, as in (25) below -cf.começou a ler ("started to read INF ").As can be seen, the two verbs are normally distinguished by the form of their complement. 7The form of the verb começar illustrated in ( 17) is a borderline case, since the BP corpus contains several instances of its use with the infinitive (preceded by por), but its combination with the «gerúndio» is overwhelmingly more common.
ii. ACABAR (literally: "end"), when it indicates the last of a series of events (rather than the end of a given situation 8 ), in which case the preposition preceding the infinitive is por: Secondly, there is the case where the «gerúndio» and the infinitive are both common in EP (while BP normally only resorts to the «gerúndio»).This happens at least with the verb VIR ("come"), which indicates gradual change in time of the relevant state-of-affairs.The use of this auxiliary verb reveals some idiosyncrasies, with differences arising from the use of the simple vs. the compound forms (unnoticed in the literature, to our knowledge).
In structures with the simple forms of the auxiliary verb vir, EP clearly favours the use of the «gerúndio» (though a few instances with the infinitiveslightly odd to some EP speakers -are registered in the corpus); BP only uses the «gerúndio»: 8 There are at least three distinct forms of the auxiliary verb acabar (cf.e. g.Dascal, 1982): (i) one that identifies the last of a series of events, as in (19) -cf.acabou por ler ("ended by read INF ") / acabou lendo ("ended reading"); (ii) another that identifies the end of a given situation -cf.acabou de ler ("ended to read INF ", equivalent to finished reading); and (iii) still another that refers to the moment immediately following some event -cf.acabou de ler ("ended to read INF ", equivalent to has just read).As can be seen, the first verb is normally distinguished by the form of its complement, and the second and the third often give rise to ambiguity.
Structures with a compound form of the auxiliary verb vir -ter vindo (literally: "have come") -are very common in EP.They occur only with the prepositioned infinitive (ter vindo a INF) and are roughly equivalent to the simpler forms with vir (vir GER)9 .The sequence ter vindo a INF is not used in BP (only 2 occurrences in the NILC corpus), but, in EP, it is absolutely predominant in oral speech, and more common than vir GER -which is felt as slightly formal or literary -in the written journalistic discourse.The following sequences are thus typical of EP: Thirdly, one mu st consider the cases where no differences are noticed between EP and BP, since both dialects systematically use either only the «gerúndio» or only the prepositioned infinitive.Among the verbs that only occur with the «gerúndio» in both EP and BP, we mention the following two: i. IR (literally: "go") expressing gradual change in time: ii. a homonym of the previous verb which expresses the non-occurrence (in the past) of an imminent situation; in this case, the meaning of the verb roughly corresponds to the meaning of the adverb almost: ii.COMEÇAR [A] (literally: "start [to]"), when it refers to the beginning of a given situation (rather than to the first of a series of situations), i. e. when it acts as a situation reducer, in the terms of Peres (1993)  Furthermore, it must be noticed that the auxiliary verbs that select the preposition de -e.g. deixar de, parar de, cessar de, acabar de, terminar de (cf.English to quit, to stop, to cease, to finish) -only occur with the infinitive both in EP and BP.
As far as we can see from the description just made, there seems to be no clear semantic regularity in the distribution of the periphrastic «gerúndio» and the competing infinitive form, in Portuguese, since auxiliary verbs of the same semantic and syntactic family seem to behave differently.
So far, we have only considered the competition «gerúndio»-infinitive, the phenomenon that undoubtedly evinces the most striking differences between EP and BP with respect to the use of the periphrastic «gerúndio».However, other differences exist between the two varieties, in the domain under analysis.More specifically, some forms or structures seem to be found onlyor essentially -in one of them.Let us start by considering the forms or structures that are typical of BP. i. the auxiliary aspectual verb VIVER (literally: "live") BP uses the auxiliary verb viver, normally with the «gerúndio» (only 10 occurrences with the prepositioned infinitive in the NILC corpus), to express the constant iteration of a given situation (cf.Neves, 1999: 63).This verb is roughly equivalent to the complex predicate passar a vida that was considered in ( 16 ii.the auxiliary verb TERMINAR (literally: "end") with «gerúndio» or infinitive preceded by por 10  The value of the auxiliary verb terminar in question is equivalent to that of the verb acabar illustrated in ( 19).This verb is relatively common in BP, where it is used -just like acabar -both with the «gerúndio» and with the infinitive preceded by the preposition por (albeit the combination with the «gerúndio» is more common).In modern EP, the use of this verb terminar is very uncommon (no more than 2 occurrences of the relevant sequence terminar GER in the NP corpus, and no register of terminar por INF 11 ).The following sequences are thus relatively unlikely to be uttered or written by an EP speaker, who would normally resort to the equivalent verb acabar: 10 There are are at least two distinct forms of the auxiliary verb terminar, parallel to the forms (i) and (ii) of the verb acabar mentioned in fn. 8.We consider here only the form parallel to (i), which indicates the last of a series of events. 11However, the form is often registered in classical Portuguese authors: "E, todavia, Afonso terminou por lhe descobrir um encanto íntimo."(Eça de Queirós, Os Maias, in CLP).
c. "Começou a esquentar o casulo com seu hálito; a borboleta termi nou saindo, mas suas asas ainda estavam presas, e terminou por morrer pouco tempo depois."(NILC, par 109803) [BP] iii. the structure estar GER, where the «gerúndio» is applied to stative predicates like saber ("know") or poder ("can" / "may") As is well known, the possibility of combining the verb estar with stative descriptions is highly restricted in Portuguese (cf.e. g.Cunha, 1998;Pessoa, 2000;Peres, 2003), the restrictions being, to some extent, similar to those applying in English to the progressive forms.BP, however, seems to impose less constraints than EP, judging by sequences like (33), which sound definitely odd to EP speakers.We will not further elaborate on this issue, which is complex and exceeds by far the scope of the present paper.iv. the structure estar GER, where the auxiliary verb typically occurs in a periphrastic future form -ir estar ("go be INF ") -and the whole structure carries an implicature of low commitment of an entity -typically the speaker -with the occurrence of a given state-of-affairs: (34) Eu vou estar resolvendo o seu problema ainda hoje.
[BP] "I go be solving the your problem still today" I will solve your problem today.
Structures like these, studied in Viotti & Scher (2001), occur essentially in informal (non-standard) BP.As said, they have a special pragmatic effect, somehow implying that the speaker does not whole-heartedly commit himself to bringing about the mentioned state-of-affairs.The sequence is roughly equivalent to the following (standard) form, without the auxiliary estar, which, however, does not carry the non-committal implicature: ( Often, a particular rhetorical (euphemistic) effect is obtained, since gradualness does not usually combine with the relevant states (cf. the oddity of adding the adverbial aos poucos -roughly, little by little -to the sequences at stake).In these context s, the suggestion is that those states gradually come into existence rather than start at particular points in time.Observe also the following examples that correspond to a relatively informal register: (37) a. Já vão sendo horas de irmos embora.[ We will not elaborate on this issue, which certainly requires a more extensive and minute analysis.

Towards a semantic characterisation of the adverbial «gerúndio»
The semantic characterisation of the adverbial «gerúndio» is a complex issue that cannot be exhaustively explored in this paper.However, we will briefly present some basic elements of analysis that permit a better understanding of the differences identified in the next subsection.We will leave a more thorough investigation of the linguistic facts that will be presented here for another paper.
A basic semantic question concerning the adverbial «gerúndio» is the exact value of the gerundive morpheme (-ndo) in the relevant structures.The classical view -which can be found in traditional Portuguese grammars, in other recent works about Portuguese (cf.e. g.Leal, 2001;Lobo, 2002), and in the grammars of other Romance languages (cf.especially Lonzi, 1991, for Italian, andLagunilla, 1999, for Spanish) -, is that the «gerúndio» is a highly polysemic operator .This view is grounded on the fact that adverbial gerundive clauses may be associated with a wide range of interpropositional values.Some of the main ones for Portuguese are listed below, wherefollowing a common use -we baptize the subtype of «gerúndio» according to the value of the whole gerundive clause.The general typology and the designations -which are our own, although inspired in the work of other authors -is merely tentative.In general, we believe that the semantics of gerundive clauses is easier to capture within a formal framework that takes into account the rhetorical relations established in discourse, or discourse relations (henceforth, DRs), in the spirit of Asher (1993), Lascarides & Asher (1993), or more recent work within the same line of research.The treatment of the adverbial «gerúndio» within this framework seems promissing, and worth a more detailed consideration.The typology presented below is, to some extent, related to this work.
At least the following semantic values of gerundive clauses -and, by extension (for the sake of simplicity), of the «gerúndio» -may be distinguished12 :

i. POSTERIORITY «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause identifies a situation that occurs after the one represented in the main clause, a DR comparable to Narration being established. (41) O assaltante entrou no banco, [ dirigindo-se calmamente ao caixa].the burglar entered PERF PAST in-the bank, directing-himself calmly to-the cashier 'The burglar entered the bank and came up calmly to the cashier.'

ii. ANTERIORITY «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause identifies a situation that occurs prior to the one represented in the main clause, a DR comparable to the reverse of Narration being established.iii.TEMPORAL OVERLAPPING «GERÚNDIO» The gerundive clause identifies a situation that is temporally concomitant with the one represented in the main clause.Typically, parallel activities are involved. (43) O gorila corria na jaula, [gesticulando de modo brusco].the gorilla ran IMPERF PAST in-the cage, gesticulating of way brisk 'The gorilla was running to and fro in the cage, making brisk gestures.'

iv. BACKGROUNDING «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause identifies a (typically stative) situation which sets the temporal background for the situation represented in the main clause, a DR comparable to Background being established.(44) [Passeando pela praia], a Ana encontrou uma moeda de ouro muito antiga.walking by-the beach, the Ana found PERF PAST a coin of gold very old 'Ana found a very old gold coin as she was walking along the beach.'

v. B ACKGROUNDED «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause identifies a situation which occurs against the temporal background set by the situation represented in the main clause, a DR comparable to the reverse of Background being established.It normally requires the compound «gerúndio». (45) A Ana passeou durante horas pela praia, [tendo encontrado uma moeda de ouro muito antiga].
the Ana walked PERF PAST for hours by-the beach, having found a coin of gold very old 'Ana walked along the beach for hours and found a very old gold coin.'

vi . ELABORATIVE «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause identifies part of a bigger situation, represented in the main clause, a DR comparable to Elaboration being established.It normally requires the compound «gerúndio». (46) A Ana remodelou toda a casa, [tendo pintado a sala de azul].
the Ana remodelled PERF PAST all the house, having painted the living-room of blue 'Ana remodelled the whole house and painted the living room blue.'

vii. MANNER «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause identifies a characteristic of the situation represented in the main clause.

viii. INSTRUMENTAL «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause identifies the instrument or means to achieve the situation represented in the main clause.Similar, though not identical, to the Causal «gerúndio», below (cf.Lonzi, 1991)

xi. CONDITIONAL «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause has the semantic value of a conditional clause.
(52) Vivendo numa cidade pequena, teríamos mais qualidade de vida.living in -a town small, [we] would-have more quality of life 'If we lived in a small town, we would have a better quality of life.'

xii. CONCESSIVE «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause has the semantic value of a concessive clause.
[it] is incredible!(being) rich as [he] is, the Paulo bought a car in second hand 'It's incredible!Rich as he is, Paulo bought a second-hand car.'

xiii. ADVERSATIVE «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause has the semantic value of an adversative clause.

xv. NEUTER «GERÚNDIO»
The gerundive clause identifies a (typically stative) situation that is associated with the one represented in the main clause, in such a way that no temporal, mereological, causal, instrumental, conditional or contrastive relation holds between them.We might perhaps vaguely term this relation as simple association of two situations, but, on a closer inspection, possibly different types of discourse relations -like Comment, Instantiation or Generalisation, for instance -would have to be taken into account.«Neuter» is therefore a provisional cover-up term. (56) Os juros serão pagos anualmente, [sendo o BPA quem efectua o pagamento].the interest will-be paid annually, being the BPA who makes the payment 'The interest will be paid annually and the BPA will be the one to make the payment.' Often, both in EP and BP, speakers resort to the sequence sendo que ("being that"), acting as a true subordinate conjunction, when the value at stake is present (32 occurrences of sendo que in the EP corpus vs. 417 in the BP corpus).For many speakers, the combination at stake is, in some cases, regarded as marginal or stilistically clumsy.We will not explore the issue here.As can be easily seen, the fifteen relations described above may be grouped in different classes or families.For instance, (vi) and (vii) involve different components or aspects of the same situation, whereas the other cases generally involve situations conceived of as independent.Within this second group, (i) through (v) involve essentially temporal relations, (viii) through (x) involve causal or instrumental relations, (xi) involves conditionality, (xii) through (xiv) involve contrastive relations and (xv) is typically atemporal.We leave the elaboration of this question also for further research.
The issue that we are interested in exploring here is whether the various semantic values at stake are directly conveyed by the «gerúndio» -as is covertly or explic itly assumed in most of the literature -or not.In our opinion, at least three arguments seem to disfavour the idea of direct conveyance by the «gerúndio», i.e. the idea of a polysemous gerund morpheme.First, the «gerúndio» may appear in adverbial clauses associated with contradictory values, like anteriority and posteriority (cf.( 41)-( 42)), cause and effect (cf. ( 49)-( 51)), instrument (or means) and result (cf.(48)--( 50)).Therefore, if the values in question were directly marked by the gerundive morpheme, this morpheme would instantiate an exotic case of "antonymic polysemy".Secondly, the interpropositional values at stake need not be morphologically marked, and arise in sequences of two juxtaposed sentences as well (in association with well-known rhetorical processes discussed in the literature about discourse relations).Thirdly, some semantic values -like posteriority, temporal overlap or result -may be marked by explicit adverbial expressions (within the gerundive clause), with no sense of redundancy emerging.Observe the following sentences, similar to (41), ( 43) and (51) above, with the addition of em seguida ["right after"], simultaneamente ["simultaneously"] and por isso ["therefore"], respectively.In fact, some interpropositional values -like the contrastive ones, for instance -are preferably marked by explicit adverbial means (cf. the use of no entanto ["nevertheless"] and antes ["rather"] in ( 54) and ( 55), respectively).
Taking all these facts into account, a second hypothesis may be considered, according to which the «gerúndio» is a mere syntactic marker of propositional connection, that is, a semantically null morpheme comparable to the complementizer que ("that").However, this hypothesis does not smoothly account for the fact that the combination of matrix and gerundive clauses seems to be more restricted than the combination of two sentences by mere juxtaposition or conjunctive coordination.In particular, the association of disconnected events, in listing contexts, appears to be incompatible with the «gerúndio», though not with juxtaposition or coordination.Observe the adequacy of the following sequences to the question: «O que aconteceu?»(«What happened?»): (62) a. Houve um terramoto na Ásia e os sindicatos convocaram uma greve geral para Setembro. 13here-was a earthquake in -the Asia and the trade-unions called-for a strike general for September 'There was an earthquake in Asia and the trade unions called for a general strike in September.'b. *{Havendo / Tendo havido} um terramoto na Ásia, os sindicatos convocaram uma greve geral para Setembro.{there-being / there-having been} an earthquake in-the Asia, the trade-unions called-for a strike general for September b′.*Houve um terramoto na Ásia, tendo os sindicatos convocado uma greve geral para Setembro.there-was a earthquake in -the Asia, having the trade-unions called-for a strike general for September Finally, a third hypothesis may be envisaged, according to which the «gerúndio» is a discourse operator that simply marks association of events, i. e. a wide-spectrum interpropositional connective which merely requires that the associated situations are linked by one among a vast set of discourse relations (to be defined according to multiple contextual and/or situational factors), therefore being incompatible with disconnected events.This hypothesis -that we formulate here in a rather vague way, to be elaborated in further investigation -seems to easily accommodate the fact that the adverbial «gerúndio» is often associated with a temporally neuter value -cf.(56) -that paradigmatically instantiates the simple association in question.

Differences between EP and BP concerning the adverbial «gerúndio»
The competition between «gerúndio» and prepositioned infinitive that was explored in section 3 (in connection with the periphrastic «gerúndio») equally affects structures where the adverbial «gerúndio» emerges, and, apparently, with increasing complexity.In this regard, let us note, in the first place, that the use of a INF in adverbial contexts appears to be subject to strict temporal and aspectual requisites that drastically limit the contexts in which it may surface.
In terms of temporal semantics, the sequence a INF normally requires that the involved situations overlap.Consequently, it does not alternate with the «gerúndio» in structures that involve posteriority or anteriority relations.This is for instance the case of sentences with four types of «gerúndio»posteriority «gerúndio» and resultative «gerúndio» (where the situations expressed by the adverbial clause occur after those expressed by the main clause), anteriority «gerúndio» and causal «gerúndio» (where the situations expressed by the adverbial clause occur before those expressed by the main clause): i. posteriority «gerúndio» (cf.( 41)) ( 63) O assaltante entrou no banco, {dirigindo-se / *a dirigir-se} calmamente ao caixa.
Nevertheless, in some sentences involving instrumental relations, the sequence a INF is possible, and quite natural, for that matter: (69) A Ana enriqueceu {vendendo / a vender} quadros de pintores desconhecidos.
"the Ana got-rich {selling / to sell} pictures of painters unknown" Ana got rich (by) selling pictures from unknown painters.
In these cases, however, an Aktionsart shift seems to take place: the main clause identifies not only the culmination that follows the situation identified by the gerundive clause (Ana achieving her status as a rich person, in ( 69)), but also the preparatory phase that overlaps that situation (the process of Ana getting rich).Thus, the use of a INF is not exceptional here, since it involves temporal overlapping.
As for aspectual restrictions, we must note that, in the sequence a INF, the infinitive verb typically represents basic or derived activities (or, in a few exceptional cases, states, incidentally those that are compatible with estar a).Consequently, a INF does not alternate with the «gerúndio» in structures that involve other aspectual classes, in particular regular states (including those with the compound «gerúndio» -tendo PP).This is namely the case of sentences with three types of «gerúndio»: backgrounded «gerúndio» and elaborative «gerúndio» (as they typically occur with the compound «gerúndio», which represents stative eventualities), and the neuter «gerúndio» (as it typically occurs with states): i. backgrounded «gerúndio» (cf.( 45)) (70) A Ana passeou durante horas pela praia, { tendo / * a ter} encontrado uma moeda de outro muito antiga.
Note, by the way, that in structures with subtypes of «gerúndio» that allow a broader choice of aspectual classes, the alternation infinitive/«gerúndio» is contingent on the classes involved.Take for instance the concessive «gerúndio».In (53), it does not compete with a INF, since the adverbial clause represents a state: (73) É incrível!{Sendo / *A ser} rico como é, o Paulo comprou um carro em segunda mão.
In contrast, the adverbial clause below (also with a concessive value) involves an activity, and is therefore perfectly grammatical with a INF in EP: (74) A Ana consegue ter notas altas, (mesmo) { estudando / a estudar} pouco.
the Ana manages have INF marks high, even {studying / to study} little 'Ana manages to get high marks, even though she studies little.' Before considering some data showing the alternation of «gerúndio» and (prepositioned) infinitive in adverbial clauses, it should be noticed that frequency values on the use of gerundive clauses in EP and BP are harder to obtain from the corpora than with other instances.Our intuition as speakers, however, is that the tendency to avoid the «gerúndio» in EP is not so strong in (at least some) adverbial gerundives as it is in periphrastic constructions, but we will have to leave a more accurate assessment of this intuition for further research.Corpora consultation also indicates that BP makes very sparse use of the a INF construction in adverbial contexts.Let us now look at some examples: i. temporal overlapping «gerúndio» (cf.( 43)) ( 75) O macaco corria na jaula, {gesticulando / a gesticular} de modo brusco.
iii. manner «gerúndio» (cf.( 47 Other linguistic facts may interfere in the competition between «gerúndio» and prepositioned infinitive, making the general picture even more complicated.We leave the scrutiny of this topic for further research. The following examples, involving prepositioned infinitives, are of the type that a modern Brazilian speaker would normally write with a «gerúndio», and are thus typical of EP.They were taken from literary texts, since this kind of use is hard to find in press discourse.( 81 In general, modern written EP uses prepositioned gerundive clauses rather sparsely.However, these clauses occur frequently in classical authors, like Eça de Queirós and Almeida Garrett, with a temporal value: either an episodic future value -as in (84) -, or a generic value, corresponding to correlation of events -as in (85).Furthermore, in informal (oral) EP speech, the episodic future value is relatively common in structures like (86).Prepositioned gerundive clauses with temporal values seem to be very rare in BP.
( "in being eight hours, [I] go-myself away" At eight, I will leave.

Conclusions
Overall, we can say that the use of the «gerúndio» is fairly similar in European and Brazilian Portuguese.In fact, this verb form occurs in the same (five) major types of syntactic environment and may be associated with the same interpropositional semantic values -e.g.temporal, elaborative, causal, instrumental, conditional or contrastive -, when used adverbially.Nevertheless, differences exist in the use of prepositioned gerundive clauses, which are worth noticing.Minor ones regard gerundive clauses preceded by em, with causal and conditional values, which are common in written BP, but not in EP (cf.( 82)-( 83)); gerundive clauses preceded by em, with simple temporal values, were common in classical EP writers and are still used in informal EP speech, but do not usually occur in normal BP (cf.( 84)-( 86)).
More striking is the difference between EP and BP which amounts to the fact that, in (at least some variants of) EP, the «gerúndio» tends to fall into disuse after some auxiliary aspectual verbs, like estar or andar, or in adverbial gerundive clauses that involve temporal overlapping of activities, for instance.Given the very common status of these constructions, the impact of this sort of variation between EP and BP becomes considerably perceptible.As was briefly mentioned, the phenomenon seems to be subject to historical and dialectal considerations that could not be explored in this paper (though we noted, for instance, that Portuguese classical authors use the «gerúndio» in contexts that are seldom found in modern EP newspapers).Furthermore, the tendency to abandon the «gerúndio» shows some regularities -e.g.temporal and aspectual restrictions -, but evinces some asymmetries as well, typical of phenomena that have not completely stabilized.This is particularly evident in the case of the periphrastic «gerúndio», where verbs within the same syntactic and semantic family seem to behave differently.
In the Brazilian NILC corpus, there are 3951 occurrences of the sequence continuar + GER versus 1401 of continuar + a INF; the sequence acabar + por INF occurs 342 times in the same corpus.
) above.EP does not use the auxiliary verb viver, whence the following sequences are typical of BP: 35)Eu vou resolver o seu problema ainda hoje."Igosolve the your problem still today"Let us now turn to the structures that are typical of EP.i. the structure ir GER, where the verb ir conveys the notion of temporal gradualness and is applied to stative predicates INF is fairly common in EP to express gradual change, as in (38a).To express the same value, BP normally uses a simpler sequence with the auxiliary verb vir and the «gerúndio», as in (38b).At this point, we must note that there seems to be a general tendency in BP to avoid structures with compound auxiliary verbs of the form ter + PAST PARTICIPLE.For instance, whereas EP frequently uses sequences like ter estado (a INF) or ter andado (a INF), these are very rare in BP, be it with the infinitive or with the «gerúndio» (only 3 occurrences of ter estado in the BP corpus and no register of ter andado).The following complex forms are thus typical of EP: EP] already go being hours of [we] go away 'It is high about time that we leave.' b.Já vais tendo idade para teres juízo![EP] [you] already go having age for [you] have wisdom 'It is high about time that you behave!' ii.structures with the compound form ter vindo (a INF) As said above (cf.examples in (21)), the sequence ter vindo a .The gerundive clause identifies a situation that is the consequence or result of the one represented in the main clause, a DR comparable to Result being established.It may be considered the reverse of either an instrumental -cf.(50) -or a causal -cf.(51) -relation.