Some peculiarities of the ir + Infinitive construction in European Portuguese

Abstract

This paper deals with some semantic properties of the structure ir (‘go’) + Infinitive in European Portuguese, in particular when it occurs with the Pretérito Perfeito and with the Presente do Indicativo. We will argue for the hypothesis that, indeed, there are two different constructions behind the ir (‘go’) + Infinitive sequence: one in which ir (‘go’) seems to retain most of its basic lexical properties, imposing strong aspectual restrictions to the situations that can combine with it and another in which ir behaves like a pure temporal operator of futurity, imposing no relevant constraints to the eventualities in its scope.