The Posts of Governor-generals and Viceroys in Colonial Brazil

In the article we examine the problem of posts’ rank for the governor-generals and viceroys of colonial Brazil in the system of Portuguese colonial management of the indicating overseas dominion. We found out the regalia and jurisdiction levels of indicating supreme posts. We emphasized on the contents of administrative and management system of Portugal in the context of its functioning in Brazil. We accented that indicating system had the form of monocracy which was synthesized with collegiate, public administrative authorities. These authorities functioned on the basis of hierarchical coherence principle. We indicated that jurisdiction of governor-generals and viceroys in Brazil were more limited compared with similar supreme posts in India. In the article we elucidate the fact that during 1549-1808 governor-generals and viceroys headed the administration of colonial Brazil. The powers of indicating supreme posts were regulated by numerous statutes. The last statute (1677) prolonged before arrival of Portuguese prince Joao and his royal court in Rio de Janeiro in 1808. According to this statute the list of powers of governor-generals and viceroys in Brazil was actually identical, except withdrawal of the norm about the fixed stay-term of viceroy on the post. It is accented that in difference from the vice-kingdom of India Portuguese crown didn’t provide the corresponding status for colony in South America. This fact demonstrates the privileged position of India among other overseas possessions of Portugal.

Idiosyncrasies and generalizations: Argument structure, semantic roles and the valency realization principle

This article argues in favour of dealing with valency phenomena and collocations in terms of constructions. An attempt is made to combine Goldberg’s model of argument structure constructions with item-specific valency constructions. It is argued that it may be appropriate to distinguish not only between verb-specific participant roles and argument roles, but to introduce a further level of clausal roles to account for AGENTIVITY and AFFECTEDNESS typically associated with subjects and traditional direct objects. Finally, the issue of to what extent the syntactic behaviour of verbs can be predicted from their meaning is taken up and it is shown that Goldberg’s Semantic Coherence Principle and Correspondence Principle have to be supplemented by a Valency Realisation Principle.