towards an analysis of errors made by university students ... - DSpace

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they usually precede the noun. This subject is elaborated,
with details, in BACK, Eurico & MATTOS, Geraldo. Gramati ca
construtural da língua portuguesa. São Paulo, FT D, 1 9 72 . v. 1.
p. 311-19. What Sinclair calls a nominal group the authors
mentioned above call 'locução substantiva'. The headword in
their concept is the nucleus (núcleo) in a 'locução substantiva';
the exponent of the nucleus is also a noun; as to the adjectives,
they have been divided in 7 sub-classes according to their
position or function within the 'locução substantiva ' . From the
examples presented on page 312, by BACK & MATTOS, we are
interested in those adjectives that they have called 'qualificativos',
'especificativos' e 'pátrios' because it is their
position in relation to the nucleus that has served as the basis
for this work. Those authors say that the 'especificativos' are
those which occur immediately after the nucleus, or the noun;
the 'pátrios' - the ones concerning nationalities or origin - •
may come immediately after the noun or after the 'especificativos';
the 'qualificativos' are the ones which may come immediately
before the noun or after it; if there are 'especificativos' or
'pátrios' in between, the 'qualificativos' come after the last
adjective(s) after the noun.
It is not our purpose to establish a comparison
between the classes and sub-classes of adjectives as presented
by BACK & MATTOS and the delicacy scale at (m) as Sinclair has
devised it; we have already seen that there is not a consistent
way of classifying the exponents operating at e and n between
the systemic grammar and the constructural one. Our main concern
is to show that our students do not detect the headword and
modifiers in an English ngp, or if they do so, they are not
able to change (m) to the equivalent element in Portuguese which
operates at (q), besides ignoring the sequence of the exponents
in the rendered translations which usually present an awkward
arrangement, not to mention those cases where comprehension
has been completely obstructed; moreover, we know that the
occurrence of some sort of adjectives before the noun, in
Portuguese, is due to some stylistic reasons or it may also be
ruled by semantic criteria; on page 315 BACK & MATTOS have
quoted an example where the 'colour' adjective may occupy either
(m) or (q) positions giving rise to different interpretations.