PROCESSOS DE FORMAÇÃO DE PALAVRAS NO PORTUGUÊS DO BRASIL: O SUFIXO –INHO(A) SOB AS PERSPECTIVAS TRADICIONAL E LINGUÍSTICA E SUAS NUANCES SEMÂNTICAS

Abstract

One of the issues that still causes controversy in Portuguese language teaching is what grammarians call inflection of degree of nouns and linguists call a process of suffixal derivation. In particular, the suffix -inho(a), which, far beyond determining spatial dimensions, involves semantic aspects in the formation of new words, either by intensifying or by distancing the semantic load of the root to which it is added. The general goal of this paper is to try to elucidate the controversy of the category of degree of the noun by establishing a parallel between normative grammar and the linguistic perspective focusing on the semantic nuances of the suffix -inho(a). To this end, we analyze some normative grammars, such as Cunha and Cintra (2016), Cegalla (2020), Rocha Lima (2011) and theorists Basílio (2004; 1980), Câmara Jr. (1996), Bechara (2004), Gonçalves (2005), Laroca (1994) and Ribeiro (2014), in order to present a more comprehensive view of the problem from different perspectives. At the end of this study, we analyzed four school grammars, used in Elementary Education, with the intention of investigating how the content 'degree of the name' is presented and explored in these textbooks. The research revealed that half of the analyzed grammars classify the noun degree as derivation; the others, in accordance with the NGB, still classify it as inflection. All of them were categorical in stating that the diminutive by the suffix -inho(a) does not express only spatial dimension. However, in most of them, we found that, through the proposed exercises, not enough attention was given to the richness of meanings that it can express in language in use.