Tensed and non-tensed nominalization of the infinitive in Portuguese

Abstract

This text presents an analysis of three types of nominalization of the infinitive in European Portuguese, characterized by distinct syntactic and semantic properties but all indicated by the presence of a determiner to the left of the infinitive. In the nominal infinitive, which has more nominal than verbal properties, a process is denoted, which is why culmination verbs are forbidden in most cases. In the literature it has also been stated that transitive verbs cannot be used as nominal infinitives. However, the presence of some aspectual modifiers that force a durative and unbounded process reading may allow the occurrence of these verbs. There is also the possibility of nominalizing a full infinitival clause, denoting a fact. Since this contains verbal and tensed properties, it may contain the inflected infinitive and in most cases involves the so called Aux-to-Comp movement, it is thus analyzed here as the nominalization of CP. 1 I thank Belinda Maia for helping me in collating the examples in CetemPublico corpus and Petra Sleeman for suggestions regarding a previous version of this text. I also thank the audiences of the Workshop on Tense and Aspect in Generative Grammar.

Portuguese infinitives: their pieces and their meaning

“…These infinitives are usually treated as a nominalization from a verbal stem, since they license argument structure and -given their nominal character -have their arguments introduced by prepositions, as in (1b) and (3). Basílio (1987) and Brito (2013) claim that dever ('must') and poder ('can/may') in (2) -and a few others -are instances of "lexicalized infinitives" and therefore should be seen as "special" and should not be analyzed as prototypical nominal infinitives -as (1b) or (3a). However, although we recognize that they convey additional semantic content, 4 our working hypothesis is that they can be treated as belonging to the same nominal group, because dever and poder exhibit the same "pieces" (root, verbal theme vowel, infinitive-marking), convey an event/state-related reading and license argument structure, as shown in (4).…”

“…Although the literature agrees on the distinction between nominal and verbal infinities, there is no consensus on mixed infinitives -but see Brito (2012Brito ( , 2013 for EP andResende (2016, 2020) for BP. These infinitives are mixed in that display both verbal and nominal properties.…”

“…On infinitives, a lot of work has been devoted to the distinction between nominal and verbal infinitives, such as Basílio (1987), Khedi (1992) and Resende (2016Resende ( , 2020 for Brazilian Portuguese (BP); Raposo (1987a, b), Brito (2012Brito ( , 2013, Oliveira (2014) for European Portuguese (EP), to mention a few. In turn, syntactically the concerns revolve around the tense of infinitives and their relation to other phrases and manly to what kind of syntactic setting (raising, control, etc.)…”

“…In addition to tense, some authors have also argued for grammatical aspect in some infinitives forms in Italian (Zucchi, 1993), Spanish (Demonte & Varela, 1997), French (Sleeman, 2010), German (Alexiadou, Iordăchioaia & Schäfer, 2011), BP (Lunguinho, 2006;Rodrigues, 2006;Resende, 2016Resende, , 2020 and EP (Brito, 2012(Brito, , 2013. Furthermore, semantically, scholars have provided a formal analysis for verbal infinitives, as Chierchia (1985), Abusch (2004); Silvano & Cunha (2016) on EP and Ferreira (2020) on BP.…”

Sobre a sintaxe da interpretação temporal dos infinitivos em português

“…A segunda razão é que as diferentes leituras temporais dos infinitivos só se tornam evidentes -ou, pelo menos, identificáveis -na relação com outra sentença, ou seja, extrapolando os domínios da "palavra", de forma que a relação estrutural com outros constituintes fuja ao escopo das análises estritamente morfológicas. Pondo de lado esses casos, já há trabalhos que se debruçam sobre a contribuição aspectual dos infinitivos, como Lunguinho (2006), Rodrigues (2006), Brito (2013, Resende (2016Resende ( , 2020, entre outros. Especificamente, ao lado de outras formas não finitas, tais como o particípio (cantado -em que há uma leitura perfectiva), gerúndio (cantando -em que a leitura é progressiva), o infinitivo parece veicular uma interpretação imperfectiva ou durativa, como pode ser visto em o nascer do sol.…”