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One of the main features of José Saramago's fictional prose is the reflection on the use of language and, in particular, the lexicon. No other recent Portuguese author has or has had such an evident and reiterated concern. In Saramago's works, we find at each step an author that is concerned to explain to the reader the use of a certain word, reflecting on its origin and semantic peculiarities. Many of these reflections may be considered part of what in linguistics is known as implicit lexicography (VERDELHO, 1995), which refers to the act of recording, in the text itself, lexicographic or dictionarystyle definitions. Implicit lexicography occurs whenever an author presents a definition of a word or expression, with the aim of clarifying its meaning or avoiding ambiguity. The objective of this study is to identify in José Saramago's fictional works the passages in which the author presents lexicographic definitions. Such definitions are well-marked in the text and are easily distinguished from the rest of the discourse, although they are also part of it. The second term of the definition is often introduced by the verbal form é ('is'), as in «um machuco é um chaparro novo», although the author makes use of other expressions: quer dizer ('that is to say'), isto quer dizer ('this means'), isto é ('that is'), significa ('it means'), maneira de dizer ('another way of saying'), para quem não saiba ('for those who don't know'), etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the hypothesis of parameters for the expression of comparison and degree constructions discussing data from Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Beck et alii (2009) and Beck, Oda and Sugisaki (2004) propose three parameters: i) the language has degree predicates (DSP -- Degree Structure Parameter); ii) the language has or does not have binding of degree variables in the syntax (DAP -Degree Abstraction Parameter); and iii) the language has a syntactic degree argument filled (DegPP -- Degree Phrase Parameter). Languages with negative setting in the DSP do not show any degree construction at all, especially comparative constructions with an expression like "more". The DAP explains structures with binding of degree variables in the syntax, like comparative clauses with scope ambiguities. At last, there is the impossibility of filling the syntactic degree argument of gradable adjectives with measure phrases (cf. *2 metros alto/2 meters tall). This fact is explained by a negative setting in the DegPP. It is shown that BP receives positive setting in the first ones but negative setting in the last. It is also discussed degree interrogatives and measure phrases like 2 metros de altura "2 meters of height". The paper concludes that these structures should be better discussed to understand their place in the degree parameter hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]