A construção perifrástica esperar+infinitivo nas Exortações Apostólicas do Papa Francisco

Abstract

This research aims to describe and analyze the modal verb esperar as a discursive resource and argumentative strategy in Apostolic Exhortations of Pope Francis, which refers to a religious genre in which the Holy Father makes notes on doctrine and directs them to the clergy, religious people and Catholic faithful. In this sense, we resort to studies of Discursive Modalization which specify the category modality as a way of imprinting the subjective attitudes of subjects in relation to what they enunciate thus contributing to persuasion and convincing in their discursive and argumentative construction. For this, 6 (six) Apostolic Exhortations delivered by the Supreme Pontiff were selected. The analysis of occurrences, supported by the theory of Discursive Modalization, reveals that the modalizer esperar, when establishing modal contents, presents a qualified modal orientation, mostly, for the Event, with the most established semantic domain being that of volitive modality, followed by the modal subtype of epistemic modality. Regarding the frequency of modal values in the generation of the modal verb esperar, the volitive modal value of willing was the most established. In relation to the modal domain, objective modalizations were the most frequent.