(Inter)subjetificação na linguagem e na mente

Subjectification and intersubjectification play a central role in cognitive-functional approaches to semantic change and grammaticalization. They are highly regular processes of conceptual perspectivization and semasiological change that consist in a greater involvement of the conceptualizer/speaker through the introduction of its perspective or attitude or a greater prominence of the coordination between the subjects of conceptualization, that is to say, speaker and interlocutor. This study will discuss the two main approaches to (inter)subjectification, namely the Elizabeth Traugott’s functional-pragmatic approach and the Ronald Langacker’s cognitive approach. Then, we will analyze three cases of (inter)subjectification: the well-known case of the
English construction be going to as a marker of the future tense, the emergence of the causative senses of the verb deixar ‘to leave, to let’ and the development of evaluative and interactional uses of diminutive and augmentative suffixes. It will be argued, based on the three case studies, that (inter)subjectification implies a process of conceptual perspectivization and semantic attenuation (and consequent pragmatic strengthening) and is a special effect of basic mechanisms of semantic change.