Ana Maria Martins

Enclisis, VP-deletion and the nature of Sigma

In Romance, enclisis in tensed clauses correlates with the possibility of VPdeletion. To accountfor thisfact, it is hypothesized that both phenomena emerge in languages where the functional category Sigmaf ) — the locus for Affirmation/Negation — has strong V-features (Old Romance, Modern Portuguese and Modern Galician), whereas such phenomena are absentfrom languages where Σ has weak V-features (Modern Spanish, Modern Catalan, Modern Italian and Modern French). The null VP in the VP-deletion construction is licensed in a Spec-head type relation to strong Σ, Σ containing V-features. Enclisis is the outcome ofverb movement to Σ in the overt syntax, clitics being left-adjoined to AgrSubj (which Σ dominates); verb movement in the overt syntax only takes place when the V-features ο/Σ are strong.

On focus movement in European Portuguese

Abstract This paper characterizes Contrastive Focus Fronting (CFF) in European Portuguese, distinguishing it from Topicalization and Evaluative exclamatives on the basis of syntactic and interpretational tests illustrated with empirical evidence from intuition/introspective judgments and different types of written sources. It reveals that the lack of consensus among speakers regarding CFF is a consequence of the fact that Contemporary European Portuguese includes two grammars with CFF. One grammar is less restrictive regarding the array of constituents that can be fronted. The other grammar only allows fronting of deictics or constituents containing them. In this more restrictive variant, CFF structures are comparable to other grammatical structures of European Portuguese, which have in common the fact that word order alternations may be limited to deictic elements. Finally, this study identifies the relevant semantic features to tease apart CFF, Topicalization and Evaluative exclamatives. CFF involves fronting of constituents with the features [D-linked]/[deictic] and [evaluative]. Topicalization structures and Evaluative exclamatives do not associate the two types of features: topicalized constituents are [D-linked]; the fronted constituent in Evaluative exclamatives bears the feature [evaluative].

Identity Avoidance with Reflexive Clitics in European Portuguese and Minimalist Approaches to Control

In this article, we discuss two types of cooccurrence restrictions involving reflexive clitics in European Portuguese and examine their implications for obligatory control. We argue that these restrictions may shed some light on where the controller is generated, thus making it possible to empirically test three Minimalist approaches to control: the predicate attraction approach (see Manzini and Roussou 2000), the PRO-based approach (e.g., Chomsky and Lasnik 1993, Landau 2000, 2004, Martin 2001), and the movement approach (e.g., Hornstein 1999, 2001, Boeckx, Hornstein, and Nunes 2010). We show that none of the approaches is able to capture all the relevant data if pursued under a strong lexicalist perspective such as Chomsky’s (1993, 2000) and that only the movement approach can account for all the data in a uniform way under Chomsky’s (2001) weak lexicalist perspective.

Negation and NPI composition inside DP

Old Portuguese does not display such correlation between DP-internal word order and polar interpretation. In fact, in Old Portuguese algum was a bi-polar polarity item (Martins 2000) that would receive a positive or negative reading as a function of being part of a non-negative or negative sentence and independently of being prenominal or post-nominal. ‘Nominal negative inversion’ with algum/alguno is also found in Spanish (which however differs from Portuguese in some respects), but is not a grammatical option in most Romance languages. The goal of this paper is threefold. I will seek to understand how word order brings up the polar contrast illustrated in (1) above, how the negative interpretation associated with postnominal algum arose in the course of time, and how exactly Portuguese and Spanish compare to each other with respect to the innovative structure. The three questions are naturally interrelated. The specific contours of the connection will hopefully be made clear throughout the paper. I will propose that the sequence [N+algum] in contemporary European Portuguese is an NPI built in the syntax through incorporation of the noun and the indefinite quantifier in a DPinternal abstract negative head positioned above NumP, as illustrated in (2). Cyclic head-movement determines that N carries along to the incorporation site the indefinite quantifier

Variação sintática no português quinhentista: a colocação dos pronomes clíticos

This work reexamines in the light of new data a proposal put forward in Martins (2011) concerning the historical development of clitic placement in Portuguese. Prima facie, this syntactic change follows a surprising path apparently involving a sudden reversal in the direction of change after the sixteenth century. It is argued in this paper that previous analyses, including that of the present author, fail to recognise the existence in sixteenth century and later Portuguese of two (social) dialects as regards the position of clitic pronouns. A simplistic observation of textual sources masks the complexity of the linguistic situation in the historical period in question, creating an illusion of continuity between different objects. The present study uses the sixteenth century cookbook Livro de Cozinha de um Frade Portugues do Seculo XVI, edited by Anabela Leal de Barros (2013), as an especially valuable textual source to help us understand the history of clitic placement in Portuguese. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/elg.7.2373

Syntactic change in Portuguese and Spanish: Divergent and parallel patterns of linguistic splitting

Throughout the medieval period the syntax of Portuguese and Spanish is very much alike and the two languages display parallel grammatical changes that set them apart from other Romance languages (e.g. the loss of the oblique pronouns en and i, the reorganization of the system of deictic locatives, the evolution of haber/tener and ser/estar). But the earlier unity of Portuguese and Spanish syntax will not prevent later change leading to linguistic splitting, which may result from change along diverging paths or along similar/parallel paths. In the latter situation, splitting arises when one of the languages goes further along the path of change. This paper describes two cases of syntactic change starting with a common grammatical stage for Portuguese and Spanish and ending with two different grammars. While both changes feature instances of linguistic splitting arising from a former unity, they nevertheless exhibit different development patterns, illustrating what I will be calling the ‘inverted-Y’ and the ‘I’ patterns of linguistic change. Section 2 deals with clitic placement. Spanish and Portuguese coincide in the initial stage (that, chronologically, mainly corresponds to the Middle Ages), but once each language acquires its own dynamics of change their development paths become consistently diverging, showing the ‘inverted-Y’ pattern of change. Because the topic of clitic placement is too big for the intended size of the current chapter, I will concentrate here on characterizing the “time” of unity, before diachronic splitting was set in motion. Section 3 deals with negative polarity items, in particular post-nominal algum/alguno. Also in this case, Spanish and Portuguese end up being different. But the two languages show a similar path of change, have identical grammars for a period of time, and only diverge in the eighteenth century because European Portuguese changes a step ahead of Spanish along the same path. The diachronic development of post-nominal algum/alguno exemplifies the ‘I’ pattern of change. A brief overview of the chapter and some final remarks will be offered in section 4.

Universality and Binding Effect of Human Rights from a Portuguese Perspective

The Portuguese legal system is strongly committed to the protection of human rights either at the international and European levels or at the national one. This chapter analyzes how the Portuguese Constitution acknowledges all sources of international law that consecrate human rights and drafts the limits to their reception by the Portuguese legal order. It is stressed that the majority of the international conventions do not assure an adequate human rights enforcement regime. However, the ECHR constitutes a remarkable exception, and it has adopted a specific mechanism that influences, on a daily basis, the Portuguese courts and public bodies’ decisions. Furthermore, the Chapter explains the national constitutional regime of fundamental rights, pointing out the difference between civil rights (“direitos, liberdades e garantias”) and social, economic and cultural rights. In order to access how the law works, in practical terms, this study includes a brief summary of several decisions of the Portuguese Constitutional Court and the other Supreme Courts.