THE SUBJECT IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE NULL IMPERSONALS

• Grant number: 16/02239-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2016
• End date: January 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Jairo Morais Nunes
• Grantee: Janayna Maria da Rocha Carvalho
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims at studying impersonal sentences without a dedicated pronoun, such as Nessa loja vende carro bom (literally: in this store sell3.SG car good). Sentences of this type are usually called null impersonals in the literature and are found in at least one type of language, namely, partial pro-drop languages. Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is a member of such group. Apart from Holmberg and Phimsawat (2015), who study the properties of these sentences in radical pro-drop languages contrasting them with their Finnish counterparts, the analyses put forward so far searched for a unifying analysis of null impersonals. For instance, Holmberg (2005, 2010) assumes that null impersonals exist because T has no D feature in partial pro-drop languages, while Barbosa (2011, 2013) assumes that pro is assigned generic reference when it stays inside the vP in this type of language. This project aims at contributing to this debate by showing that BP and Finnish null impersonals differ in several aspects. Furthermore, BP data can be divided in at least three distinct classes. This situation has not been described in the literature up to now either in relation to BP or to any other partial pro-drop language. By studying these groups, this project will survey how the reference to an arbitrary participant is obtained in BP null impersonals and contribute to the ongoing discussion on the status of null subjects in BP.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

JANAYNA CARVALHO. A relação entre a presença do núcleo Voice e o clítico SE no português brasileiro. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada, v. 34, n. 2, p. 661-688, 2018-06-00. (16/02239-9)

CARVALHO, JANAYNA; FELDHAUSEN, I; ELSIG, M; KUCHENBRANDT, I; NEUHAUS, M. Teasing apart 3rd person null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese. ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTIC THEORY 15, v. 15, p. 18-pg., 2019-01-01. (16/02239-9)