• Examines contrast preservation, weakening, and merger in /b β v/ across Romance. • Frequency- and CI-based atlas analysis reveals region-specific phonetic variation. • Variation reflects positional asymmetries, lexical and contact-based effects. • Irregular realisations challenge structural accounts of segmental change. • Clarifies and visualises the geographic distribution of /b β v/ realisations. This study investigates how phonological contrast in Romance may be preserved, weakened, or neutralised under certain conditions, focusing on the phenomenon of betacism , a process whereby /b/ and /v/ (or /β/) tend to merge into a single phoneme. Whereas structural models have tended to treat betacism as a uniform shift, the findings suggest that the erosion of this contrast reflects interacting phonetic, lexical, and sociolinguistic pressures, including lenition, lexical conditioning, and contact-induced change. The analysis focuses on the realisation of /b β v/, showing how phonetic overlap and irregular patterns emerge through positional asymmetries and specific lexical items. The dataset draws on regional linguistic atlases from Romania, Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. It applies a frequency-based mapping approach by integrating these atlases to document how the /b/-/v/ (or /b/-/β/) contrast varies across dialects and between word-initial and intervocalic contexts. Lexical identity and prosodic position appear to condition outcomes, which may be compatible with usage-based and contact-sensitive models of sound change. These findings also suggest the potential role of lexical irregularity in shaping phonological outcomes. The research provides a comprehensive empirical account of /b β v/ variation and outlines a framework that can serve as a replicable model for examining phonological contrast weakening through combined structural, lexical, and areal perspectives. It offers methodological tools that may inform broader discussions of phonological contrast beyond betacism, particularly through quantitative geolinguistic mapping.

• This paper describes the systems and function structures of the verbal group in B P within the S F L framework. • The paper describes “from above”, the verbal group functions as clause elements. • “From below” the verbal group pre-selects word classes through systems of verbal mood and aspectuality. • The main reason why the verbal group in BP is complex is because its main systems TENSE, MODALITY and ASPECTUALITY allow for recursion. • Typologically, this description may contribute to very complex grammar units in other languages. This paper describes the verbal group in Brazilian Portuguese within the Systemic Functional Linguistics framework. The verbal group is an intricate grammatical unit found in many languages. To adequately describe it, comprehensive approaches that consider its structural complexity are needed. While focusing on a relatively small grammatical unit, higher levels of language, such as clauses and discourse semantics, must be taken into account. Following Systemic Functional Linguistics descriptive methodology, this paper adopts a text-based, axially reasoned, trinocular approach. “From above”, the verbal group functions as part of clause structure, construing processes and negotiating meanings through pre-selections of functions such as Predicator, Finite, and Modality. “From below”, the verbal group pre-selects word classes through systems of verbal mood and aspectuality. “From roundabout”, the structure of the verbal group can be observed through its logical, interpersonal, and experiential relations. Logically, the verbal group establishes relations between the time when an event takes place and the “here and now” of the speech event through the system of tense. Interpersonally, modality meanings are also realised in the verbal group by the system of modal type. Experientially, resources of the system of event type realise meanings related to how experience is represented in the verbal group. In addition, Brazilian Portuguese form verb complexes, realising several meanings including aspect, modality, evidentiality, and voice.

• Identifies characteristic patterns of meaning by surveying verbal groups in forty Australian and Papuan languages. • Variations include construals of time, identification and transitivity roles of participants, exchanges between speakers. • Provides a model for comparing systems and structures across multiple languages. • Indicates deep phylogenetic relations between languages in Australian and Papuan regions. This paper reports a comparative study of features realised in the verbal groups of Australian and Papuan languages. It draws on analyses of whole texts published in forty descriptions of languages distributed across the region, using tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which are explained throughout. Methods were designed for cross-linguistic description, using these tools. The texts were analysed for patterns of ideational, interpersonal and textual functions, at the levels of discourse semantics, clauses, word groups and words. For this paper, characteristic variations in verbal groups were identified, and representative texts selected, to display these variations. Findings include complexing of verbs, verbal groups and clauses to realise various ideational functions, that are characteristic of the entire region, often labelled as ‘serial verbs’. Textual functions include realisations of participant identities as pronominal verb affixes and clitics, or as ‘switch reference’ markers distinguishing participant roles in adjacent clauses. Interpersonal functions include realisations of mood, polarity and modal assessments in verbal groups.