Rhetorical relations and textual-discourse functions in clause combining in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the rhetorical relations established in two contexts of occurrence of adverbial clauses and appositive relative clauses, as follows: the clauses may be realized either in their canonical form or apart from the main clause, as independent clauses, which I have been calling “floating structures”. My object of investigation is
the equivalence among (a) certain textual-discourse functions performed by such structures, such as “evaluation”, “restatement”, “focus”, among others ? all pertaining to clause combining at a micro level of text organization; (b) the rhetorical relations considered at a macro level of discourse organization; and (c) the syntactic functions performed by those structures. Basically, this study is carried out within de framework of Rhetorical Structure Theory, according to its development by functionalist researchers from the West coast of North America.

Key words: rhetorical relations, textual-discourse functions, clause combining, syntactic functions, functionalism.