A CONCEPÇÃO DE SUJEITO NOS COMPÊNDIOS GRAMATICAIS: A ABORDAGEM TRADICIONAL E OUTRAS PERSPECTIVAS

Abstract

The objective of this study is to observe the different conceptions of the subject – one of the core components of a sentence – which, for decades, has been defined and described based on various concepts, depending on the grammatical model or theory that presented it in the Portuguese Syntax study program. The subject is one of the most studied topics in so-called “grammar classes” and occupies a prominent place in language teaching. For this reason, this paper seeks to show how the subject is treated or presented to students and readers in grammar books, from traditional grammar to the more “modern” grammars used in schools. On the one hand, we have traditional grammar, which introduces the concept of subject by mixing semantic and syntactic criteria. On the other hand, we have other perspectives based on linguistic research that treats the subject as one of the elements in the syntactic hierarchy and how it relates to other sentence terms. Accordingly, this study adopts the viewpoint of grammarians aligned with the traditional approach, as outlined in the Brazilian Grammatical Nomenclature (NGB), while also drawing parallels with alternative theoretical perspectives that challenge or expand upon this model. The grammars used for this study are those of Francisco da Silveira Bueno (1968), Carlos Henrique da Rocha Lima (1972), Celso Cunha and Lindley Cintra (1985), José de Nicola and Ulisses Infante (1991), Mário A. Perini (1995), and Evanildo Bechara (2004).