Multifunctionality of mas ‘but’ in Portuguese *

Hengeveld/Mackenzie (2008: 52) consider that the constructions with mas ‘but’ result from the combination of two Discursive Acts with different communicative statutes, there being a Nuclear Discursive Act, with greater communicative weight, and a Subsidiary Discursive Act, which will have a rhetorical function named “Concession”. This paper aims to investigate the various uses of mas ‘but’, according to Functional Discourse Grammar, in order to determine the pragmatic, semantic, and morphosyntactic properties of each case in real occurrences of Portuguese. The combination of linguistic units through mas ‘but’ always indicates interpersonal strategies, which are differentiated by the communicative intention of the speaker as well as reflected in the layer involved. However, mas maintains the capacity to attribute the most salient status of information to the unit it scopes or operates on. We identified four uses of mas ‘but’ in different layers: Move Operator in the Move layer, Emphasis Operator and Concession rhetorical function in the Discursive Act layer, and the Contrast pragmatic function in the Com-municated Content layer.


Introduction
Hengeveld/Mackenzie (2008: 52) consider that the constructions with mas 'but' result from the combination of two Discursive Acts with different communicative statutes, there being a Nuclear Discursive Act, with greater communicative weight, and a Subsidiary Discursive Act, which will have a rhetorical function named Concession.This paper aims to investigate the various uses of mas 'but', according to Functional Discourse Grammar, in order to determine the pragmatic, semantic, and morphosyntactic properties of each case in real occurrences of Portuguese.The combination of linguistic units through mas 'but' always indicates interpersonal strategies, which are differentiated by the communicative intention of the speaker as well as reflected in the layer involved.However, mas maintains the capacity to attribute the most salient status of information to the unit it scopes or operates on.We identified four uses of mas 'but' in different layers: Move Operator in the Move layer, Emphasis Operator and Concession rhetorical function in the Discursive Act layer, and the Contrast pragmatic function in the Communicated Content layer.
'What do I think of what?S1 de hoje em dia? dos jovens... de hoje em dia. a cabeça deles, como é que vai ser tudo isso... com o pensamento que, que eles têm? o futuro dessa geração... 'of nowadays?The young folks... nowadays, their mindset, how everything will play out... with the way of thinking they have?The future of this generation...' S2 é outra pergunta, também, meia, não é, para gente entender a mente de um jovem hoje em dia, está meio bravo.'That's another question, kind of, isn't it, for us to understand the mind of a young person nowadays is kind of hard.' S1 senhor acha?
Our purpose is, therefore, to investigate the different uses of mas according to the Functional Discourse Grammar in order to establish the pragmatic, semantic and morphosyntactic properties of each use in actual occurrences of Portuguese.These occurrences have been extracted from the corpus Português Falado ('Spoken Portuguese'), developed by the by the Projeto Português Falado: variedades geográficas e sociais ('Project Spoken Portuguese: geographical and social varieties').In this paper we used the varieties spoken in Portugal (PT89, PT95, PT96), Brazil (BR80, BR87, BR93), Mozambique (MO86), São Tomé and Príncipe (TO-PR96).

2
The role of mas in Portuguese We have found four different uses of mas 'but' in our data, whose pragmatic, semantic and morphosyntactic properties will be described below.2

Marker of the rhetorical function Concession
In example (1), repeated for convenience in (6), below, the use of mas 'but' establishes a contrast between two informational contents: eu fui para Porto Alegre 'I went to Porto Alegre' and eu fiquei hospedada numa outra cidade vizinha 'I stayed in another neighboring city'.As we can see, these communicated contents are not contrastive in themselves but are conceived as such by the Speaker, based on their knowledge, assumptions, and inferences, given that, as well remarked by Sweetser (1990: 103), there cannot be contrast or disagreement outside of the speaker's mental concept.In this occurrence, the Speaker retrieves the information that is already available to the Addressee, namely that they had been to a conference in  Garcia et al. (2021:155-193) state that the role of the Nuclear Act introduced by mas 'but' is to add or replace the Communicated Content presented in the previous Discourse Act.Nonetheless, Pezatti/Mackenzie (2022: 78f.) show that the opposition expressed by mas 'but' concomitantly indicates concessiveness (Conc) at the Interpersonal Level as well as addition (∧) at the Representational Level.To put it differently, the word mas 'but' expresses the combination IL: Conc + RL: Addition (∧), to which we fully agree.These two properties, concessiveness (Conc) and addition (∧), trigger the insertion of mas 'but' at the Morphosyntactic Level, and not of embora 'although', according to the equation in (7), in addition to representations of each level in (7a), b and c.Therefore, the rhetorical function Concession marked at the Morphosyntactic Level by mas 'but' reflects concessiveness between the Discursive Acts at the Interpersonal Level, addition between Propositional Contents at the Representational Level and the order of the Concessive Clause (representative of the Subsidiary Act) before the Clause representing the Nuclear Act, which is always preceded by mas 'but'.The construction as a whole displays the configuration of Coordination, a phenomenon which surfaces at the layer of Linguistic Expression, since two units which can be used independently are combined.
These pragmatic, semantic and morphosyntactic properties distinguish mas 'but' from embora 'although'.At the Interpersonal Level, both join two Discourse Acts with different statuses (cf. ISSN 1615-3014 93 Hengeveld/Mackenzie 2008: 54-55).However, while embora 'although' marks the Subsidiary Act, which is a kind of afterthought (cf.Keizer 2015: 56), mas 'but' marks the Nuclear Act.Each Discursive Act which is involved stands for a Propositional Content at the Representational Level, but only the concessiveness with mas has the property of addition, which is not the case of embora 'although'.These interpersonal and representational differences are reflected at the Morphosyntactic Level: the use of mas 'but' stands for Coordination at the layer of Linguistic Expression, since both Clauses can be used independently from each other; the use of embora 'although' reflects Linguistic Expression with a configuration of Cosubordination (cf. Garcia 2016: 173), in which one Clause is dependent and the other is independent, as displayed in (8a), b, c and (9a), b, c.

Move operator
As pointed out by Garcia et al. (2021: 184), example (2), resumed for convenience in (10), as opposed to ( 6), establishes a relation between two Discourse Acts: The Subsidiary and the Nuclear, which forms the core of a Move.The word mas 'but' also will control the interaction by signalling the introduction of a new Move, as displayed in ( 10).
( 'But let us talk in terms of practical applications.'S2 aí tem que partir para o lado político. 'Then we must turn to the political aspect.' S1 exacto.o plano político, está, então nós sabemos que, ah, estão, tentaram aí porque eu acho que foi uma tentativa que se fizeram, não é, nos países do leste de implantação do socialismo.(BR87:EconomiaSociedade) Exactly.The political aspect is, as we know, uh, they are, they tried, because I think this was an attempt which they have made, isn't it, to implement socialism in Eastern countries.' In this occurrence, the Speaker uses the sentence "let us talk in terms of practical applications" to introduce a discussion about "practical aspects", considering that they had only discussed "philosophical aspects" so far.Notice that the Move mas vamos falar em termos de aplicações práticas 'let us talk in terms of practical applications' displays an Exhortative Illocution, as opposed to the Interrogative Illocution in (10).
On the other hand, the mas 'but' in (12) indicates the end of a reasonably extensive turn in which the Speaker argues that the behaviour of young men has been progressively changing, since they care more about their looks and use more cosmetics than those from older generations.The expression mas eu penso que os nossos jovens que já estão noutra direção 'but I think that our young folks are already moving in another direction', retrieves in a certain sense the content at the beginning of his speech: "I think so.I think that over time a man may develop habits and changes.I think so".In this case, mas 'but' marks the end of his turn.
(12) S1 sim, sim.eu penso que sim.eu acho que sim, que com o tempo que o homem vai... criando hábitos e vai mudando.acho que sim.mesmo hoje um homem já se interessa bastante por usar um after-shave, portanto a seguir à barba, eh, pôr uma água-de-colónia, enfim já acha es[...], que isso é um produto necessário, não é?, e já por norma o homem, isso usa.agora um creme hidratante ou, enfim, fazer um, um tratamento especial à, à cara é natural, pronto, que a maior parte não estejam de facto mentalizados.eh, pronto, eh, enfim, ainda perdura assim uma mentalidade um bocadinho antiquada.mas eu penso que os nossos jovens que já estão noutra direção.(PT96:BomSensoRosto) 'Yeah, yeah.I think so.I think that over time a man may develop habits and changes.I think so.Because nowadays a guy does care about using some aftershave lotion, like after having shaved, uh, using cologne, so, he thinks that it... that this is a necessary product, isn't it?And, as a rule, a man uses it.Now a moisturizer or like a special facial treatment is natural, well, most of them are not really aware of it.Uh, well, uh, there's still a mindset that is a little bit old-fashioned.But I think that our young folks are already moving in another direction.' In the three latter cases, mas 'but' acts as a push operator of the Move (cf.Hengeveld/Mackenzie 2008: 52), highlighting the desire to introduce a new topic, as in (10), resuming or changing the direction of the developing discourse, as in (11), or even finish the interaction, as in (12).

Marker of the pragmatic function Contrast
In the sections 2.1 and 2.2, we have shown that either at the layer of Move or as a marker of the rhetorical function Concession, mas 'but' acts by linking non-equipollent Discourse Acts, or as an operator, introducing, resuming, closing and changing the direction of the current discourse.Nevertheless, the occurrence (3), resumed in (13) for convenience, seems not to match any of the previous cases.
(13) S1 então viu que eu que estava ali, sentado, mas adormecido (MO86: Chuva) 'then she saw that I was there, seated, but asleep,' This is neither a Move operator to indicate the introduction, nor a rhetorical function operator between Discursive Acts, since this construction is not linked to the ways by which Speaker organizes the components of a discourse to influence the Addressee towards accepting their communicative purposes.In (13), the expression sentado, mas adormecido 'seated, but asleep' suggests a linguistic strategy of putting two shared pieces of information into contrast to give more emphasis to the information preceded by mas 'but'.In other words, it indicates which of the two lexically expressed pieces of information should be highlighted.In this case, the concern lies in the way in which the Speaker gives shape to their messages based on their expectations about the Addressee's mental state, by reinforcing parts of a linguistic unit, defining the ISSN 1615-3014 96 departure point as well as the units assessed as being known by the participants in the interaction.
Hengeveld/Mackenzie (2008: 88) call these strategies for assigning different communicative statuses to linguistic units "pragmatic functions" and divided them into three types: Topic, whose counterpart is Comment, Focus, whose counterpart is Background, and Contrast vs Overlap.We are specifically interested in the Contrast function, which has received attention from various researchers.According to Bolinger (1961: 83), contrast is the phenomenon in which two or more items are opposed but still pointing out a preference for one (or several) of them.Chafe (1976: 34) explains that the phenomenon of contrastiveness involves three factors: (a) background knowledge (presupposed knowledge), (b) the set of possible candidates to fulfil the role in question and (c) the assertion of which candidate is the correct one.Taglicht (1984) understands contrast as being a pragmatic-contextual concept, which can be represented by antonyms (e. g., tall x small) or by syntactic structures (e. g., John is pleasant, but Peter is a nuisance).The author argues that the contrast can be explicit (with both units of the pair being expressed) or implicit (when only one unit of the pair is present).Moreover, Taglicht (1984) maintains that the form of enunciation is what suggests that something is presupposed.Dik (1997) states that languages feature two main Focus strategies: Information Gap and Contrast.The latter is of our special interest since it "involves some kind of contrast between the Focus constituent and alternative pieces of information, which may be explicitly presented or presupposed" (cf.Dik 1997: 332f.-3).The Parallel Focus "is assigned to corresponding constituents in parallel constructions."In the other contrastive Focus types, "the information presented is opposed to other, similar information which Speaker presupposes to be entertained by Addressee.These may be called cases of 'counter-presuppositional' Focus" and may indicate substitution; expansion; restriction; selection; rejection (cf.Dik 1997: 332).Hengeveld/Mackenzie (2008: 96-99), in turn, consider Contrast to be yet another pragmatic function, along with Topic and Focus.This function points out "the Speaker's desire to bring out the particular differences between two or more Communicated Contents or between a Communicated Content and contextually available information" in the co-text or the discourse situation (Hengeveld/Mackenzie 2008: 96).
The important point to be noticed here is that contrast is a pragmatic-contextual concept which sets a correct candidate against other potential candidates to fulfil the role at hand, while taking into consideration the presupposed knowledge (background knowledge) of the participants.In each case, both members in a pair of opposites may be present in the enunciation or one of them may be implicit.
Galvão Passetti (2021: 162) 13), the construction linked by mas 'but' (sentado, mas adormecido 'seated, but asleep') is a single Discourse Act, in which the contrast takes place between two Subacts forming a single Communicated Content.The use of mas to link Subacts consists in the linguistic strategy of putting two shared pieces of information into contrast, giving more emphasis to the information preceded by mas; in other words, it is a means to indicate, between two lexically expressed pieces of information, which one should be highlighted.In the epistemic domain, seated is in contrast with asleep, considering that, as a rule, being seated presumes to be vigilant.Despite being epistemically adverse, one does not exclude the other.On the contrary, the indication of addition, inherent to mas 'but', is easily noticeable, as previously shown.Thus, the pragmatic function Contrast assigned to the second Subact at the Interpersonal Level is combined with addition at the Representational Level, resulting in the combination [IL: Contr + RL: Addition], which is reflected in the use of mas, and not embora, at the Morphosyntactic Level, according to the representation of the three levels in (16a), b, c.The occurrence (4), resumed in (17) for convenience, also illustrates a case of Contrast between Subacts of the same Communicated Content, with both members of the pair of opposites being lexically expressed (ar 'air' and sangue 'blood').This example shows that the Speaker presumes that the Addressee has a piece of information X for which he (Speaker) has non-X (Dik 1997: 333).Therefore, in order to provide a piece of information to the Addressee which he considers to be the correct, appropriate, and most important for their purposes, the Speaker corrects the Addressee's information, rejecting it.It is not a matter of adding information, but of rejecting one of the pairs by means of the negation operator não and assertion of the other, using the affirmation operator sim.The occurrences in ( 16) and ( 17) provide examples of the pragmatic function Contrast, in which the parts of information put into contrast are lexically expressed in the syntactic unit, representing the strategy of Parallel Focus, set forth by Dik (1997: 331).While in ( 16), information is expanded, in ( 17), one piece of information is replaced with another.
In sum, in Portuguese, supporting Hengeveld/Mackenzie's proposition ( 2008), clearly distinguishes the pragmatic functions Topic and Focus from the function Contrast, i. e., the emphasis on particular differences between parts of information, which may be explicit or implicit.Furthermore, it uses two different strategies to indicate the pragmatic function Contrast: when the contrasted information is explicit (Parallel Focus in terms of Dik 1997: 331), the employed means is mas 'but'.On the other hand, when only one piece of information is explicit and the other is contextually available (Counter-presuppositional Focus in terms of Dik 1997: 331), it resorts to particles such as apenas 'only', só 'just', sobretudo 'especially', principalmente 'mainly', também 'also', among others (Pezatti 2012: 87).Mas 'but' is the means employed in Portuguese to mark the pragmatic function Contrast, opposing two Subacts of the same Discourse Act.

Emphasis Marker
According to Pezatti/Garcia (2021: 107), the occurrence (5), repeated for convenience in (18), illustrates yet another usage of mas 'but'.In this example, the informational content of the Discourse Act preceded by mas 'but' conveys identical or at least compatible information to the previous content, signalling the Speaker's desire to reinforce parts of information.
( The intensification can be expressed by different means (grammatical suffixes, lexical words, and syntactic constructions).The purpose is to show, in accordance with Pezatti/Garcia (2021), that constructions introduced by mas 'but' in given contexts can also mark reinforcement or intensification.
Occurrences such as (18) cannot be analysed as an instance of Concession by means of mas 'but', as in ( 6), given that they do not have a rhetorical function, i. e., they are not related to the way the Speaker organizes the discourse components in order to convince the Addressee over to some communicative purpose which they have in mind.Neither can (18) be analysed as an instance of Contrast, as in ( 13) and ( 17), since no oppositional relationship between incongruent pieces of information is established, which is evoked by Subacts of the Discourse Act's Communicated Content.
In the case of ( 18), the second unit mas adorei!'but loved it!' does not provide descriptive information presenting distinct or opposite semantic contents.Rather, it conveys the same content, yet underlines the Speaker's emphatic commitment to the communicated content (Keizer 2015: 87), which is called Emphasis.
As a Speaker's linguistic action, Emphasis is a category of the Interpersonal Level, which spans all its layers (Act, Illocution, Communicated Content and Subacts) except for Move and the Participants of the Speech Act.
The analysed data shows that, in addition to the emphatic (lexical) modification signalling annoyance and anger, as stated by Hengeveld/Mackenzie (2008: 64f.) and Keizer (2015: 59f.), a Discourse Act may be intensified to express reinforcement, thus having the representation in (20).The clauses mas adorei!'but I loved it' in (18) and mas é linda 'but is it beautiful' in ( 21) are examples of Discourse Acts with an Exclamative illocutionary force, since they express the Speaker's strong appreciation, respectively, for the historical cities of Minas Gerais and the church of Santo António in the city of Mariana (cf.Keizer 2015: 61f.). 4 In this case, mas 'but' works on the Discourse Act as a whole, highlighting the feeling of appreciation, as in (21a).This section treated the pragmatic, semantic and morphosyntactic properties of Discourse Acts emphasized by mas 'but'.The next section presents a summary of the uses of mas 'but' founded in the analyzed data.

Conclusion
Based on the Functional Discourse Grammar model, this study shows that there are four uses of mas 'but' in Portuguese: two as operators and two as functions, as summarized below.
1. Push operator at the Move layer, to indicate the introduction, resumption or ending of a topic in the current discourse, as shown by Garcia et al. (2021).
2. Emphasis operator at the Discourse Act layer, indicating the Speaker's emphatic commitment to the content of the Discourse Act, as proposed by Pezatti/Garcia (2021).
3. Rhetorical function Concession, when combining two non-equipollent Discourse Acts, it marks concessiveness at Interpersonal Level, as shown by Garcia et al. (2021), and addition at the Representational Level, as proposed by Pezatti/Mackenzie (2022).
4. Pragmatic function Contrast, when combining two necessarily lexically explicit Subacts in a single Discourse Act, it marks Parallel Focus, as shown in Pezatti/Mackenzie (2022).In this respect, this proposition differs from Galvão Passetti's (2021), who considers it to be a Contrast between two Discourse Acts, and not Subacts within a single Discourse Act.Furthermore, this proposition allows a clear distinction between Parallel Focus, marked by mas, and Counter-presuppositional Focus, marked by expletives, as pointed out by Dik (1997: 331).In sum the combination of linguistic units through mas 'but' always signals interpersonal strategies which differ in the speaker's communicative intention and are reflected in the layers involved.It is interesting to note that these strategies retain the ability of mas 'but' to give emphasis to the unit on which it is acting.

( 21 )
S1 você chegou a conhecer em Tiradentes aquela, aquela igreja de Santo António? aquela matriz de Santo António... 'Did you get to know in Tiradentes that, that church of Santo António?That main church of Santo António...' (28d) ML: (Gwj: /mas/ (Gwj)) (Apj: [(Advwj -muito-(Advwj)) (Awj: -agressivo-(Awj)) (Apj)) of mas in Portuguese in the light of FDG (Source: elaborated by the authors) S1 aí, lá fomos nós para Ouro Preto, Mariana e aquilo tudo.depoisfomos a São João del Rei e Tiradentes.é o que eu te disse que adorei, mas adorei!(BR80:ArteUrbana) 'Then we went off to Ouro Preto, Mariana and all those places.Afterwards, we went to São João del Rei and Tiradentes.That's what I told you I loved, but loved it!'Hengeveld/Mackenzie(2008:52)considerthatconstructions such as (1) result from the combination of two Discursive Acts with different communicative statuses.Thus, there is a Nuclear Discursive Act, with a greater communicative weight, and a Subsidiary Discursive Act, which has a rhetorical function of Concession can be marked by although or but.The use of both although and but to indicate interpersonal Concession is conditioned to the type of Discursive Act (subsidiary or nuclear), meaning that although marks the Subsidiary Act, whereas but marks the Nuclear Act (cf.Hengeveld/Mackenzie 2008: 54-55).
, ge[...], geração, não! (BR80:CriarFilhos) 'No, I don't consider myself to be from another ge[...], ge[...], generation, oh no!' (3) S1 é que, quando [a mãe] ia a sair, em vez de utilizar o caminho que dava saída, portanto, de casa, eh, quis cortar.portanto, então viu que eu que estava ali, sentado, mas adormecido (MO86: Chuva) 'The thing is, when [the mother] was about to leave, instead of taking the path which led out of the home, she wanted to take a shortcut.So, then she saw você se considera assim realmente de outra geração?'But do you really consider yourself to be from another generation?' is characterized by the fact that (a) it was produced within a dialogue between two Speakers; (b) it is a single turn; (c) it can be paraphrased by então você se considera assim de outra geração?'So, do you really consider yourself to be from another generation?';(d) it has an Intonational Phrase contour; (e) it elicits a reaction from the Addressee.These properties grant this expression the status of Move, specifically an Opening Move marked by mas 'but'.Opening Move in Portuguese can also be introduced by mas 'but' when the Speaker wants to address an aspect about the topic which has not been covered yet, as illustrated in (11).(11)S1 sim, mas veja, isso no plano que nós analisamos.porque nós estamos vivendo nessa sociedade, não é, em que as coisas são totalmente deturpadas.'Yeah, but look at this in terms we have analysed, because we are living in this society, isn't it, in which things are totally distorted.'S2 não, não, no plano filosófico não, é em termos de, de aplicação prá[...], prática, 10) S1 então, que é que o senhor acha dos jovens, por exemplo 'So, what do you think of the young folks, for instance' S2 acha de quê? 'What do I think of what?S1 de hoje em dia? dos jovens... de hoje em dia. a cabeça deles, como é que vai ser tudo isso... com o pensamento que, que eles têm? o futuro dessa geração... 'of nowadays?The young folks... nowadays, their mindset, how everything will play out... with the way of thinking they have?The future of this generation..'But do you really consider yourself to be from another generation?, Well...' S2 não, eu não me considero de outra ge[...], ge[...], geração, não! (BR80:CriarFilhos) 'No, I don't consider myself to be from another ge[...], ge[...], generation, oh no!' ISSN 1615-3014 94The construction mas considers that mas 'but' can both mark the rhetorical function concession between non-equipollent Discourse Acts, as in (14), and the pragmatic function Contrast between two Communicated Contents belonging to different Discursive Acts, as in (15), which he calls adversative coordination of Contrast with Clarification.S1 e depois há outro treino técnico mas... de, da própria técnica em si (PT95:JogarFutebol) 'And afterwards there is another technical training, but... of the technique in itself'Unlike Galvão Passetti (2021), Pezatti/Mackenzie (2022: 79-81) consider that, in the occurrence ( (14) S1 nada de excepcional, mas eu acho uma beleza (BR80:ArteUrbana) 'Nothing exceptional, but I think it is lovely' ISSN 1615-3014 97 (15) 18) S1 é o que eu te disse que adorei, mas adorei!(BR80:ArteUrbana) 'That's what I told you I loved, but loved it!'In(18),there is no opposition between both Discourse Acts é o que eu te disse que adorei 'that's what I told you I loved' and adorei!'I loved it!',sincemas'but'cannotbereplaced by adverbs such as porém, contudo, todavia, entretanto, no entanto(Bagno 2011: 891); quite on the contrary, repeating adorei!'I loved it!' preceded by mas 'but' intensifies the Speaker's appreciation for the cities, the subject of the conversation.Contrast, respectively), whereas the construction -(é) que allows the Speaker to reinforce a Subact within the Communicated Content.To put it differently, this is the interpersonal category of Emphasis and not of pragmatic function, as shown in (19), whose Reference Subact, represented by tubarão 'shark', is highlighted.(19)S1 mas o tubarão que tem a fama é que se apossou do mar (TO-PR96: Pesca) 'but the shark which has the fame is what seized the sea' (Longhin 1999;Braga 2009)use of the structure é...que 'it is...that', recognized in functionalist research works as cleft construction and Focus-be constructions(Longhin 1999;Braga 2009).Nonetheless,Pezatti (2012: 92)argues, based on Functional Discourse Grammar, that cleft construction and Focus-be constructions are means to indicate pragmatic functions (Focus and ISSN 1615-3014 99