Eckhard Bick - VISL

hooked AS-relatives (3) they even are the only ones. Another example for a comparison
relative is given in (4b) 188 .
A strong argument in favour of the existence of relative adverbs in Portuguese is
the otherwise almost exclusive 189 use of the future subjunctive tense in relative
subclauses. Departing from postnominal (attributive) or absolute nominal relative
subclauses ('Seja quem for', 'Podem comprar os livros que acharem interessantes') as the
prototypical and uncontroversial case, it seems logical to take future subjunctive
inflexion as morphological evidence of a relative reading also in the case of adverbial
subclauses (like the temporal "relative" in 'me avisem quando ele vier!'), - rather than
creating two ad-hoc rules with no raison d'être but each other, i.e. (1) calling adverbs for
conjunctions if and only if the subclause they head allows future subjunctive tense, and
(2) allowing future subjunctive tense outside relative subclauses if and only if these are
headed buy conjunctions that possess adverb homonyms 190 .
Interrogative adverbs can function as adverbials, adverbial objects, adverbial
(intensifier) adjects and complementisers:
1a. interrogative adverbial
Quando [quando] ADV @ADVL> ‘when’
partiu [partir] V PS 3S IND VFIN @FMV ‘[he] left’
1b. interrogative adverbial object
Onde [onde] ADV @ADV> ‘where’
mora [morar] V PR 3S IND VFIN @FMV ‘[does he] live’
$?
2. interrogative intensifier adject
Que [que] ADV @>A ‘how’
caro [caro] ADJ M S @SC> ‘expensive’
foi [ser] V PS 3S IND VFIN @FMV ‘was [it]’
$?
188
For a detailed discussion of comparison structures, including role predication ('trabalhar como professor'), see chapter
4.5.2).
189
The only exception are conditional subclauses with se ('if'), where the future subjunctive tense is used to express a future
condition: Se tivermos dinheiro, compraremos .. 'if we have the money, we'll buy ...
190
Conjunctions without adverb homonyms, and polylexical conjunctions consisting of a preposition + "que" (e.g. até que
'until', antes que 'before') ask for present subjunctive inflexion in adverbial clauses with a future semantic interpretation,
suggesting that not only is future subjunctive tense in adverbial subclauses restricted to adverbial complementizers, but also,
that its interpretation is one of function (relative) than one of time or, rather, semantically motivated tense (future).
- 320 -