Tense, Quantification and Clause Structure in EP and BP. Evidence from a Comparative Study on Sempre

Ambar, Manuela; Gonzaga, Manuela; Negrão, Esmeralda Vailati

doi:10.1075/cilt.256.01amb

Cited by 26 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Alternatively, assuming they exhibit structural differences similar to those argued to exist between MEP and BP, MP would be expected to behave like BP (as it does), allowing temporal/aspectual sempre in pre-or post-verbal position. So, if variation in the placement of sempre is lexical, a fact that is reinforced by the behavior of sempre in MP, there is no need to argue for different structures for BP and MEP, unlike Ambar, Gonzaga and Negrão (2004) propose.…”

Section: A Simplified Syntactic Structurementioning

confidence: 94%

“…In the framework of generative grammar, previous analyses of sempre as a temporal adjunct in MEP generally agree that, when it occurs post-verbally, sempre is in a VP adjunct position (considering that there is verb movement out of the VP) (Ambar, Gonzaga and Negrão 2004;Brito 2001;Martins 1994). …”

Section: Previous Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Generally, in MEP, temporal/aspectual sempre 'always' occurs in a postverbal position whereas, in BP, it is pre-verbal 4 (cf. Brito 2001;Ambar, Gonzaga and Negrão 2004), as in (1a) pão bread ao at almoço 5 lunch 'John always eats bread at lunch.' Change and Variation in Romance (Porto, December 2007).…”

Section: Modern European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguesementioning

confidence: 98%

“…More recently, Ambar, Gonzaga and Negrão (2004) argue that sempre is generated in the head position of TobjP (Tense Object Phrase). The confirmative reading obtains when the adverb targets the head AssertiveP carrying the adjoined verb with it.…”

Section: Previous Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 98%

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On the position of sempre in Medieval Portuguese and in Modern European Portuguese

Fiéis¹

2010

The Linguistic Review

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In Modern European Portuguese the adverb sempre can have two different interpretations: a confirmative, non-temporal, and a temporal/aspectual interpretation. In the confirmative interpretation sempre means 'after all', and in the temporal/aspectual interpretation it means 'always'. Each interpretation correlates with the position sempre occupies in the sentence.In this article we compare the behavior of sempre in modern varieties of Portuguese and in Medieval Portuguese (MP). Modern European Portuguese (MEP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) behave differently as to the placement and interpretation of sempre. This situation is assumed in the literature as deriving from aspects of clause structure, such as verb movement and licensing of null subjects (Brito 2001; Ambar, Gonzaga and Negrão 2004, among others). In MP, however, sempre is always temporal/aspectual and can be placed before or after the verb. Therefore, we argue that the variation found in MP does not relate to structural differences of the kind that exist between MEP and BP, but rather to the inherent semantics of sempre. We propose that somewhere during the history of Portuguese there was a specialization of the adverb sempre, that resulted in the fact that its syntactic placement derives its meaning. In fact, we show that the first occurrences of non-temporal sempre appeared during the Classical Portuguese period.

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Section: A Simplified Syntactic Structurementioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Previous Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Modern European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguesementioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Previous Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 2 more Smart Citations

On the position of sempre in Medieval Portuguese and in Modern European Portuguese

Fiéis¹

2010

The Linguistic Review

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“…This confirmatory aspect is at the basis of the terminology adopted by Ȃmbar,Gonzaga and Negrão (2004) in their study about Portuguese, where they refer to the meaning of sempre in (1a) as "confirmative interpretation". 2 For the sake of precision, this is true if the prosodic pattern is such that on Sunday night does not bear focal stress.…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

On truth persistence

Amaral

Prete

2014

Variation Within and Across Romance Languages

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This paper analyzes a non-temporal interpretation of the adverb sempre 'always' in European Portuguese and Italian, in which the adverb expresses persistence of the truth of a proposition over time and displays specific contextual constraints (TP-sempre). Despite an overlap in the contexts in which TPsempre may occur in both languages, we provide data showing that its distribution is not exactly the same in European Portuguese and Italian. In view of these data, we propose that TP-sempre is a modal operator of confirmation in both languages, but that it is more restricted in Italian in that it has a plan presupposition only in this language.

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On Some Special Adverbs, Word Order, and CP: Variation vs. Micro-Variation

Ambar

2008

Can. J. Linguist.

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For some adverbs, European and Brazilian Portuguese sharply differ, with consequences for the syntax of tense, quantification, word order, quantifier floating, wh-extraction, and clause structure. Evidence is provided for the architecture of the left, for remnant IP movement, and for the claim that “micro-” lexical differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese reduce to syntactic “macro-” variation: absence vs. presence of V-movement.

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Tense, Quantification and Clause Structure in EP and BP. Evidence from a Comparative Study on Sempre

Cited by 26 publications

References 9 publications

On the position of sempre in Medieval Portuguese and in Modern European Portuguese

On the position of sempre in Medieval Portuguese and in Modern European Portuguese

On truth persistence

On Some Special Adverbs, Word Order, and CP: Variation vs. Micro-Variation

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