Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T13:51:02.016Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Embedded null subjects in Capeverdean1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2012

JOÃO COSTA  and
FERNANDA PRATAS
JOÃO COSTA*
Affiliation:
CLUNL – Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
FERNANDA PRATAS*
Affiliation:
CLUNL – Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
*
Authors' addresses: Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Avenida de Berna, 26-C, 1069-061 Lisbon, Portugal[email protected][email protected]
Authors' addresses: Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Avenida de Berna, 26-C, 1069-061 Lisbon, Portugal[email protected][email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The status of Capeverdean as a pro-drop language is controversial. Baptista (2002) contends that this Portuguese-based creole has null referential subjects with some types of predicates, while Pratas (2002, 2007) proposes that it has only expletive null subjects. She argues that the rare cases of root null subjects can be analyzed as instances of null expletives. The aim of this paper is to show that in Capeverdean there is an asymmetry in the distribution of null referential subjects. These are ruled out in root contexts, but allowed in some embedded contexts; this is the case when the null subject is bound by a wh-operator or a quantifier. Following Holmberg's (2005) and Holmberg, Nayudu & Sheehan's (2009) analysis of null subjects, we offer an analysis of Capeverdean null subjects exploring the properties of T in the language (in particular, the lack of a rich inflectional system), the syntax of subjects, and the type of null category available. We claim that Capeverdean embedded null subjects are variables, licensed by an operator in the matrix clause. We show that these specific properties explain minimal differences between null subjects in Capeverdean and Brazilian Portuguese.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 33 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[1]

We are very grateful to our Capeverdean consultants from Santiago Island, especially Ana Josefa Cardoso and José António Brito. We also want to thank three anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees and the editor, for their enriching comments and suggestions; to Nina Hyams, for her careful English editing and perceptive questions, and to our colleagues Alexandra Fiéis, Inês Duarte, Charlotte Galves and Maria Lobo, for relevant insights. Research for this paper was partly funded by FCT, through the project Events and Subevents in Capeverdean (PTDC/CLE-LIN/103334/2008).

References

REFERENCES

Alexiadou, Artemis & Anagnostopoulou, Elena. 1998. Parametrizing Agr: Word-order, V-movement and EPP-checking. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 16, 491–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baptista, Marlyse. 2002. The syntax of Cape Verdean creole, the Sotavento varieties. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Barbosa, Pilar. 1995. Null subjects. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Belletti, Adriana. 1988. The case of unaccusatives. Linguistic Inquiry 19.1, 1–34Google Scholar
Biberauer, Theresa, Holmberg, Anders, Roberts, Ian & Sheehan, Michelle (eds.). 2010. Parametric variation: Null subjects in Minimalist theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1988. On si constructions and the theory of arb. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 521–581.Google Scholar
Coelho, Izete, Costa, João, Silva, Maria Cristina Figueiredo, Oliveira, Fátima & Menuzzi, Sérgio. 2001. Ordem VS e sujeito nulo em PE e PB. Presented at the II Colóquio do Projecto PE/PB, Universidade do Ceará.Google Scholar
Costa, João. 2011. Topic prominence is not a factor of variation between Brazilian and European Portuguese. In Berns, Janine, Jacobs, Haike & Scheer, Tobias (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2009, 71–88. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, João, Duarte, Inês & Silva, Cláudia. 2006. Construções de redobro em português brasileiro: sujeitos tópicos vs. soletração do traço de pessoa. Leitura. Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras (UFAL) 33, 135–145.Google Scholar
Costa, João & Galves, Charlotte. 2002. External subjects in two varieties of Portuguese: Evidence for a non-unified analysis. In Beyssade, Claire, Bok-Bennema, Reineke, Drijkoningen, Frank & Monachesi, Paola (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2000, 109–125. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Cat, Cécile. 2005. French subject clitics are not agreement markers. Lingua 115, 1195–1219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duarte, Maria Eugênia Lamoglia. 1993a. Do pronome nulo ao pronome pleno: a trajetória do sujeito no português bra-sileiro. In Roberts & Kato (eds.), 107–128.Google Scholar
Duarte, Maria Eugênia Lamoglia. 1993b. O enfraquecimento da concordância no Português Brasileiro. In Roberts & Kato (eds.), 387–408.Google Scholar
Duarte, Maria Eugênia Lamoglia. 2008. O sujeito de referência indeterminada em sentenças infinitivas. Revista do GEL (Araraquara) 5, 9–30.Google Scholar
Figueiredo Silva, Cristina. 1996. A posição sujeito no Português Brasileiro: frases finitas e infinitivas. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp.Google Scholar
Galves, Charlotte. 2001. Ensaios sobre as gramáticas do português. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Gary Martin. 1987. A cross-linguistic approach to the pro-drop parameter. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 2005. Is there a little Pro? Evidence from Finnish. Linguistic Inquiry 36, 533–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 2010. Null subject parameters. In Biberauer et al. (eds.), 88–124.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders, Nayudu, Aarti & Sheehan, Michelle. 2009. Three partial null-subject languages: A comparison of Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish and Marathi. Studia Linguistica 63.1, 59–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Roberts, Ian. 2010. Introduction. In Biberauer et al. (eds.), 1–57.Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Sheehan, Michelle. 2010. In Biberauer et al. (eds.), 125–152.Google Scholar
Menuzzi, Sérgio. 1999. Binding theory and pronominal anaphora in Brazilian Portuguese. The Hague: Thesus.Google Scholar
Miyagawa, Shigeru. 2011. Minimal parametric variation. Presented at the 21st Colloquium on Generative Grammar, Sevilla.Google Scholar
Modesto, Marcelo. 2000. On the identification of null arguments. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Modesto, Marcelo. 2007. Null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese and Finnish: They are not derived by movement. In Dubinsky, Stanley & Davies, William D. (eds.), New horizons in the analysis of control and raising, 231–248. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Modesto, Marcelo. 2008. Topic prominence and null subjects. In Biberauer, Theresa (ed.), The limits of syntactic variation, 375–410. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montalbetti, Mario. 1984. After binding: On the interpretation of pronouns. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Neeleman, Ad & Szendrői, Kriszta. 2007. Radical pro drop and the morphology of pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 38, 671–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicolis, Marco. 2005. On pro drop. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Siena.Google Scholar
Nunes, Jairo. 2008. Inherent case as a licensing condition for A-movement: The case of hyper-raising constructions in Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 7, 83–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinto, Manuela. 1997. Licensing and interpretation of inverted subjects in Italian. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utrecht.Google Scholar
Pratas, Fernanda. 2002. O sistema pronominal do Caboverdiano. MA dissertation, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Pratas, Fernanda. 2004. TP in Capeverdean: An almighty functional projection? Presented at the Lisbon Workshop on Alternative Views on the Functional Domain, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Pratas, Fernanda. 2007. Tense features and argument structure in Capeverdean predicates. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1986. On the status of subject clitics in Romance. In Jaeggli, Osvaldo & Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (eds.), Studies in Romance linguistics, 391–419. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Ian & Kato, Mary (eds.). 1995. Português Brasileiro: uma viagem diacrônica. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, Cilene. 2004. Effects of loss of morphology in partial pro-drop languages. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Safir, Ken. 1982. Syntactic chains and definiteness effect. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 1993. Argument-drop in Old Icelandic. Lingua 89.2–3, 247–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikner, Sten. 1995. V°-to-I° movement and inflection for person in all tenses. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 55, 1–27.Google Scholar