O SENTIDO PRODUZIDO PELO VERBO AUXILIAR/CÓPULA ANDAR EM PORTUGUÊS BRASILEIRO

This paper aims to analyse the semantic contribution of the verb andar (literally to walk) to the meaning of sentences, in copula and auxiliary environments. Based on the way natural languages express time and aspect, we try to assign to andar the role of a grammatical aspect verb that relates the reference time to the event time in a sentence. Here, we assume that andar requires a durative reference time, unlike some researches who have concluded that this verb assigns a durative/iterative meaning to the event. However, as we intend to show in this paper, sentences like A raposa andou matando uma galinha, that can be translated as ‘The fox andar has killed a hen’, are acceptable in Brazilian Portuguese, without a durative/iterative meaning. Thus, we argue that the duration is related to the reference time, rather than to the event itself.