Syntax in Brazil: historiographic notes and researching thematic axes

Abstract

This article sets out some thematic axes, particularly designed for the development of historiographic researches about knowledge, ideas, problems, theories and pedagogical models that involve the syntactic dimension of the grammatical studies in Brazil, between the 19th and the 21st centuries. The researching axes and the notes on the history of the syntax, which support them, are based on the grounds of Linguistic Historiography, according to Swiggers (2013, 2012, 2009) and Altman (2012, 2009, 1998). We have tried to draft some comprehension lines so as to implement the construction of descriptive, interpretative and explanatory narratives about the way how syntactic knowledge has been acquired, formulated, widespread, transformed, preserved, taught or forgotten in the Brazilian intellectual context. For this purpose, we have drawn up some sort of brief review of syntactic studies, considering, above all, the Greco-Roman scholarship, the grammatization process of Portuguese and the Brazilian pedagogical context. The narrative is closed with the systematization of three possible thematic axes, carried out in the form of research questions, in order to found a historiography of syntax in Brazil, involving theoretical, descriptive-normative and didacticpedagogical aspects.