Previous studies have reported that clitic interpolation and clitic climbing change according to three stages in the history of European Portuguese. In this paper we develop the idea that these phenomena are deeply intertwined in the diachrony of Portuguese once they are related through the notion “clitic position” and reflect a general strategy for clitics to stay outside the focus domain of the clause. In order to provide a unified explanation for interpolation and climbing, we follow a quantitative methodology using the Tycho Brahe Corpus of Historical Portuguese. Moreover, developing some ideas about the Force-Fin system, in the Generative Grammar framework, we put forward a formal approach to the diachronic change having taken place between Old Portuguese and Classical Portuguese. Considering that clitic position reflects the category hosting the clitic, we argue that the availability of XP interpolation and of obligatory clitic climbing in Old Portuguese are different consequences of more basic structural principles, such as the V-to-Fin movement, which is dependent on the role of left-peripheral elements in the Old Portuguese grammar. Therefore the clitic could occur either in Force or in Fin, in order to mark the relative presuppositional nature of clitics with respect to different left-peripheral elements. In Classical Portuguese, we defend that XP interpolation paved the way for Neg interpolation because of the loss of V-to-Fin movement in embedded contexts; by then clitic climbing started to reflect a number of criteria related to topicality. Finally, in Modern European Portuguese, the gradual loss of Neg interpolation and the marked status of clitic climbing can be seen as further consequences of the loss of V-to-Fin movement.

This volume is a collection of previously unpublished articles focusing on the following aspects of Portuguese syntax: clause structure, clitic placement, word order variation, pronominal system, verb movement, quantification, and ... This volume is a collection of previously unpublished articles focusing on the following aspects of Portuguese syntax: clause structure, clitic placement, word order variation, pronominal system, verb movement, quantification, and distribution of particles. The articles are written within the principles and parameters framework and contrast Portuguese with other Romance languages. Portuguese Syntax: New Comparative Studies by Joao Costa - Books on Google Play Portuguese Syntax: New Comparative Studies Joao Costa Oct 2000 · Oxford University Press Ebook 320 Pages family_home Eligible info Rp 1.232.163 Rp 862.514 Buy Free sample Add to wishlist This volume is a collection of previously unpublished articles focusing on the following aspects of Portuguese syntax: clause structure, clitic placement, word order variation, pronominal system, verb movement, quantification, and distribution of particles. The articles are written within the principles and parameters framework and contrast Portuguese with other Romance languages. This volume is a collection of previously unpublished articles focusing on the following aspects of Portuguese syntax: clause structure, clitic placement, word order variation, pronominal system, verb movement, quantification, and distribution of particles. The articles are written within the pri... See more about this book Joao Costa is Assistant Professor at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Joao Costa is Assistant Professor at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. See more about this author Write a review Smartphones and tablets Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone . It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.

This study investigates whether the timing of the acquisition of clitic placement in European Portuguese (EP) as a second language (L2) mirrors that of monolingual first language (L1) acquisition. We collected elicited production data and acceptability judgments from Spanish learners of EP at intermediate, advanced, and near-native levels, and a group of EP native speakers. The results show that, as in L1 acquisition, a preference for enclisis in simple declarative clauses without a proclisis trigger emerges early in L2 acquisition, even though the learners’ L1 displays generalised proclisis in finite clauses. Like L1 acquirers, L2 learners develop knowledge of proclisis contexts gradually: they first acquire the contexts that emerge earlier in L1 acquisition and later those that are more difficult, according to the following scale: Negation > Subjunctive complement clauses > Indicative complement clauses > Adverbial clauses > Quantified subjects. The early-acquired contexts depend on core syntax and are categorical in adult native grammars, whereas the late-acquired contexts involve the interface between syntax and other linguistic domains and are more variable in adult native grammars and, consequently, in the input. Although some proclisis contexts remain problematic over an extended period, the results demonstrate that full acquisition of clitic placement is ultimately attainable in L2 EP. Overall, the findings suggest that, as proposed by Tsimpli (2014) for child bilingualism, in adult L2 acquisition, the timing of the acquisition of at least certain grammatical structures parallels that of monolingual L1 acquisition, and that late-acquired properties involve interfaces between syntax and other domains.

Abstract: In this paper I will examine the conditions on the positioning of non-reflexive clitic pronouns in Portuguese. I will argue that clitic pronouns can be reordered only inside the sentences where they are generated and that, consequently, they cannot be moved out their original sentences to be attached to a verb in a higher sentence. A grammar of clitic placement in Portuguese will be offered to generate only the grammatical sentences and to block the ungrammatical ones. I will argue also that those cases in Portuguese in which a pronoun originated in an embedded sentence appears in the surface structure as a clitic attached to a verb in the matrix sen tence do not get there via clitic movement, but by a different transformation, namely Raising from Subject to Object.

Abstract Although clitic-verb non-adjacency is a minor linear pattern in contemporary European Portuguese (EP), it showed a significant frequency in the Classical and early Modern eras. The aims of the study are twofold. First, an attempt is made to pinpoint the contribution of the cl-X-verb model to the non-morphological attachment of proclitics to their verbal hosts in present-day EP. By means of a corpus analysis conducted in the 17th through 19th century texts, clitic-verb non-adjacency is demonstrated to have helped eliminate clitic -specific allomorphy in the preverbal domain. Its precise role consisted in preventing proclitics from being integrated into their hosts. The second aim is to see how this diagnosis fits in with the inertial model of grammatical change. In line with Longobardi’s proposal (2001), innovation in the syntactic processing of preverbal pronouns is claimed to have come about as a side-effect of the changes in more peripheral modules of grammar, i.e. in phonology and morphology.