Expresiones fraseológicas empleadas para presentar algo como un hecho asociadas a discursos especializados en portugués (siglos XVIII y XIX)

Since its foundation in 1779, the Academia de Ciências de Lisboa demanded objectivity and scientific neutrality from its members when submitting texts in the academic competitions. In this paper, using a mixed quantitative-qualitative method, we analyse a series of categorically formulated statements such as sendo indubitável que ‘undoubtedly’ or é bem sabido que ‘it is well known that’ that introduce premises of an argument without establishing arguments in the sense of categorical syllogisms. The study is carried out based on Memórias on agriculture, economics and agrarian economics published by the Academia between 1788 and 1821, considered fundamental in the history of science and scientific language in Portugal. The structures are analysed in the immediate contexts, their semantics in the given contexts are verified and the functional variants of a single pattern are determined from the perspective of linguistic of variation. From the functional analysis, we proceed to a phraseological classification: these are stereotypical constructions associated with certain discourses which admit the insertion of variable elements as complements; from the grammatical perspective, they are marker formulas to present facts or to identify something as evidence; from the pragmatic perspective, discourse markers of epistemic modality which indicate evidence.