A semântica das frases com subordinação adverbial: o contributo das relações retóricas

Abstract

This paper focuses on the temporal and rhetorical relations in complex sentences with adverbial subordinate clauses. We put forward a proposal for the semantic treatment within a theoretical framework which is grounded on Segmented Discourse Representation Theory, from Asher and Lascarides (2003), with some stipulations to deal with specificities of complex sentences related to: (i) the directionality of rhetorical and temporal relations; (ii) the rhetorical relations at the content and text-structuring levels; (iii) the combination of rhetorical relations of different nature. This proposal leads to a better semantic and discursive understanding of this type of complex sentences.