A BUSCA POR DIAGNÓSTICOS PARA IDENTIFICAR VERBOS INACUSATIVOS E INERGATIVOS EM GUARANI

In this work, we aim to show our search for grammatical evidence for the distinction between unaccusative and unergative verbs (PERLMUTTER, 1978; BURZIO,1986) in Guarani (TupiGuarani family, Mbya dialect). This is not an easy task due to the fact that intransitive verbs which semantically express state, change of state/place and activity behave the same in relation to a large number of grammatical processes. Besides that, the active/non-active morphological system (LEITE,1987) seems to hide the underlying representation of the verbal classes. We show here, however, that the scope possibilities of the suffixal quantifier –pa seem to shed some light on our search for the right diagnostics to identify Guarani intransitive verbal classes. Through grammatical judgment tests about the scope possibilities of –pa which is, according to Vieira (1995),an absolutive quantifier, we noticed that , besides direct objects, it can also quantify over the subjects of change of state/place verbs, such as “die”, “” fall” and “go”. -Pa cannot, however, quantify over either the subjects of transitives or the subjects of intransitives which express activity, like “ walk”, “smoke” and “laugh”. We believe that through the investigation of Guarani’s quantifiers scope, it will be possible to identify the unaccusative and unergative verbs of the language.