The syntax of government in Regras da Língua Portugueza (1725) and Arte da Grammatica da Língua Portugueza (1770): A comparative study

Abstract

Two influential 18th-century Portuguese grammars, Regras da lingua portugueza by Jeronymo Contador de Argote (1721; 1725) and Arte da grammatica da lingua portugueza by António José dos Reis Lobato (1770), stand out within the grammatical production of their time. Argote’s grammar was the first Portuguese grammar to receive multiple editions during the author’s lifetime (Kemmler, 2012) and marked a shift away from the Jesuit model of Latin teaching (Moura, 2011). Lobato’s Arte surpassed 40 editions and became one of the earliest manuals intended for public instruction in Portuguese (Kemmler, 2005). Both works also show structural innovations, particularly in their extensive treatment of syntax. This study compares their approaches to nominal and verbal government, focusing on the genitive, dative, accusative and ablative cases. In the Syntaxe de reger, Argote separates the government of nouns from that of verbs. For nouns, a category including nouns and adjectives, he identifies six cases and devotes individual chapters to all except the nominative and vocative. Lobato, by contrast, does not adopt a noun–verb division; instead, he structures each case into a Lição governed by either an active verb or a preposition, further subdivided into rules. Prepositions play a limited role in Argote’s system, where governors are often adjectives, as in the genitive (Argote, 1725). Lobato, however, places prepositions at the centre of case government, introducing each case with rules identifying the governing preposition, such as de in the genitive (Lobato, 1770). This comparison sheds light on how 18th-century grammarians conceptualised Portuguese syntax.