2025-10-172025-10-172025-09-11CARDOSO, Carla Beatriz Rodrigues. A expressão “quem dera" como forma de negação não canônica: uma análise funcionalista. Orientador: Robson Borges Rua. 2025. 27 f. Trabalho de Curso (Licenciatura em Letras – Língua Portuguesa) – Faculdade de Ciências da Linguagem, Campus Universitário de Abaetetuba, Universidade Federal do Pará, Abaetetuba, 2025. Disponível em: https://bdm.ufpa.br/handle/prefix/8701. Acesso em:.https://bdm.ufpa.br/handle/prefix/8701This study offers a functionalist analysis of the expression “quem dera” as a non-canonical form of negation in the Portuguese language. The primary objective is to present and examine this construction, which, although frequently employed in everyday discourse, is not officially documented in normative linguistic records. To this end, five instances out of forty, collected from the messaging application WhatsApp, were analyzed. The findings indicate that this construction appears more frequently than negative adverbs in informal contexts of communicative negation. In order to substantiate the theoretical discussions, an initial review of the grammars of Cegalla (2008) and Bechara (1999) was conducted, aiming to define and contextualize the linguistic elements that compose the expression “quem dera.” Specifically, “quem” is classified as an interrogative pronoun, while “dera” is a verb conjugated in either the third or first person of the pluperfect indicative tense. From a traditional grammatical perspective, the pronoun refers to a participant in the discourse, and the verb denotes an act of transfer—either concrete or abstract—from one entity to another. However, within the domain of negation, these morphosyntactic categories acquire new semantic functions. Accordingly, the discussion is grounded in the principal tenets of functionalist theory in order to explain this semantic shift. Among the scholars who address this topic, Rios de Oliveira (2020) posits that linguistic expressions subjected to frequent use tend to undergo semantic erosion more rapidly, prompting speakers to recycle or replace obsolete forms—thus accounting for the preference for “quem dera” over conventional negative adverbs. Similarly, Rosário (2015) asserts that communicative demands lead speakers to seek new linguistic labels as a means of fulfilling their expressive and creative intentions. These and other theorists referenced throughout the study offer critical contributions that are essential for understanding the object of analysis. It is therefore concluded that the expression “quem dera” reflects the malleable nature of the Portuguese language, which is constantly reshaped by its speakers in response to various sociocultural factors and motivations—chief among them, the desire for greater expressiveness.Acesso AbertoQuem deraNegaçãoFuncionalismoNegationFunctionalismCNPQ::LINGUISTICA, LETRAS E ARTESA expressão “quem dera" como forma de negação não canônica: uma análise funcionalistaTrabalho de Curso - Graduação - ArtigoAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Brazil