Frozen Adverbs — Comparative Forms Como C in Portuguese

In this paper we describe the syntactic characteristics of two classes of frozen comparatives adverbs in Portuguese. These adverbs have been noted como C, where como is a conjunction of comparison, and C a fixed string of lexical items. After discussing the notion of frozen adverb, we argue in favour of the adverbial status of como C. These forms are often optional, and they modify a verbal or an adjectival sentence in the same way adverbs do. The syntactic behaviour of como C allowed us to propose that the fixed string C is issued from the reduction of recurrent terms in the second member of a comparative structure. Such reductions are analogous to those observed in free comparatives, but the lexical recovery of reduced elements is less arduous than in the free case, since the range of lexical choices is narrower.