This paper examines the syntax of indirect objects (IO) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Adopting a comparative perspective we propose that BP differs from European Portuguese (EP) in the grammatical encoding of IO. In EP ditransitive contexts, IO is found in two configurations -one projected by a (low) applicative head and another one involving a lexical/true preposition. We propose that the former property is contingent upon the presence of dative Case marking: namely, the morpheme 'a' that introduces IO (a-DP), whose corresponding clitic pronoun is 'lhe/lhes'. In contrast, important changes in the pronominal system, coupled with the increase in the use of the preposition 'para' are taken as evidence for the loss of the low applicative construction in BP. Thus only the configuration with the lexical/true preposition is found in (Standard) BP. We argue that the innovative properties of IO in BP are due to the loss of the (3rd person) dative clitic and the preposition 'a' as dative Case markers. Under this view, we further account for the realization of IO as a DP/weak pronoun, found in dialects of the central region of Brazil, which points to a similarity with the English Double Object Construction. Finally we show that the connection between the morphological expression of the dative Case and the expression of parameters supports a view of syntactic change according to which parametric variation is determined in the lexicon, in terms of the formal features of functional heads.Brought to you by | University of Iowa Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 6/2/15 2:09 AM

No abstract

This paper deals with the patterns of argument clitic placement in European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP), and it is based on a written language corpus. In order to describe the contrasts between the two varieties of Portuguese, a contemporary author, Paulo Coelho, was chosen, as well as his book O Alquimista, written in 1988.

The Null Subject (NS) Parameter has been one of the most discussed topics within the Principles and Parameters (PP) program, not only in its theoretical formulation but also because of its implications for a theory of acquisition and change. Currently, parametric variation is thought of as a function of the lexicon; in particular, of the featural makeup of functional categories. In this perspective, a "parameter" can be conceived of as a set of surface phenomena derivable from some underlying abstract property. Comparative studies based on English and Romance (Chomsky 1981;Rizzi 1982) have indicated that the null subject property is associated with a cluster of properties which includes (i) "rich" agreement morphology; (ii) missing subjects; (iii) "free subject inversion"; (iv) apparent violations of the that-trace effect. The correlation found between the existence of rich verbal agreement morphology and subject drop in Italian-type languages has led to the proposal that the phi-features in Infl play a key role in licensing a definite null subject, 'rich' agreement morphology being a necessary (though perhaps not sufficient) condition for subject drop (Taraldsen 1980;Rizzi 1986). Further research on the matter has shown that there is a correlation between the existence of empty subjects and topic prominence or "discourse orientation". Languages such as Chinese or Japanese allow for both subject and object drop even though they show no agreement morphology at all (see Jaeggli and Safir 1989). Huang (1984: 87) argued that, in this group of languages, the null argument is identified by a null Topic, thus being Abound. Hence the distribution of null arguments is accounted for in terms of two distinct licensing strategies: licensing by agreement, found in languages with rich agreement systems, and licensing by a topic, in languages that lack agreement and are "topic prominent".Viewed in this light, Brazilian Portuguese is of particular interest, since it has been undergoing changes that point to a progressive loss of referential null subjects; concomitantly, it displays some of the properties of "discourse oriented" languages, such as null objects bound by a discourse topic.

Estudos gramaticais do português: caminhos abertos pelas investigações de Charlotte Galves