Abstract

The scope of this dissertation is to analyze the use of the auxiliaries andar, vir and viver in Portuguese and make observations about their translation into English.

Analyzing the characteristics that andar, vir and viver do or do not share with the auxiliaries 'stricto sensu' (SS), we come to the conclusion that these verbs must be classified as auxiliantes and that they are more similar to estar than to the other auxiliaries SS.

Through semantic analysis, we see that in contexts which call for the perfective ter-do, estar is interchangeable with andar and vir and that the explicit presence of the frequentative in these sentences is needed in order that viver can also be interchangeable with them. We also note that there are contexts in which only vir and estar are interchangeable, i.e., in contexts in which ter-do is not underlying.

The analysis of sentences in Portuguese and their correspondence in English serves two objectives: to give data about the translation into English of sentences with the auxiliantes and to evidence both the character of auxiliarity of andar, vir and viver and the semantic characteristic of these verbs.

The study of the translation of the sentences with the auxiliantes leads us to group the verb tenses into: (A) tenses whose correspondence in English is done with the perfective, and (B) tenses whose correspondence in English is done with or without the perfective.

This study supplies data about the functioning of Portuguese and English, showing cases in which the Portuguese and English sentences have the same meaning, and cases in which the most natural translation is the one that presents loss of meaning; therefore, one less close to the Portuguese sentence.

The results of this work can be useful to the teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language and for authors and teachers interested in preparing teaching materials. In addition, the findings presented here can serve as an aid in the area of translation.

Back