The connective por causa que: grammaticalization and analysis of grammatical and semantic-discursive properties

Abstract

This article aims to characterize the Portuguese locution "por causa que"(“because that”), from theoretical-methodological proposals based on the functional paradigm of Grammaticalization.  Firstly, hypotheses on "por causa que"appearance and an analysis of its status of conjunction are presented. Furthermore, the usage patterns of "por causa que" in spoken Portuguese are investigated using a semantic-cognitive approach (SWEETSER, 1991; TRAUGOTT; KÖNIG, 1991). The following analyses take into consideration not only the "por causa que"clause, but the whole clausal complex in which the conjunctive phrase is inserted – causal segment and effect segment –, aiming at presenting a specially discursive description of these constructions. Most of the results show many convergences between the constructions with "por causa que"and "porque"(because), which is considered to be the prototypical causal connector.