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| Author(s): |
André Luís Antonelli
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem |
| Defense date: | 2011-12-20 |
| Examining board members: |
Charlotte Galves;
Ilza Ribeiro;
Maria Aparecida Correa Ribeiro Torres Morais;
Sonia Maria Lazzarini Cyrino;
Maria Clara Paixão de Sousa
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| Advisor: | Charlotte Galves |
| Abstract | |
The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the relation between the syntax of verb position and the properties of XP fronting in the history of European Portuguese, looking specifically at the period of time which goes from the 16th up to the 19th century. The framework adopted is the minimalist version of the Principles and Parameters Theory (see Chomsky 1995 and subsequent works), using the ideas of the cartographic project as a basis for the proposals of clause structure, in special those concerning to the left periphery of the sentence (see, in particular, Rizzi 1997). Since this dissertation also deals with aspects of linguistic change, we will follow theoretical assumptions presented in Kroch (1989, 1994, 2000) and Lightfoot (1991, 1999, 2006). We will present evidences that, until the end of the 17th century, Portuguese manifested a behavior similar to that of Verb Second (V2) languages concerning the property of verb movement, but with striking differences in relation to the possibilities of XP fronting. In our analysis, this derives from the way the syntax of verb position relates to the requirements of the periphery of the sentence, in particular those concerning the checking of the EPP associated to the phi features of the Fin head. As for the 18th and the 19th centuries, we will show that Portuguese already instantiated the syntax of the modern language, without presenting the properties of a V2 language. This result is in line with different works, which, investigating other syntactic aspects of the diachrony of European Portuguese, show that, from the 18th on, there is the beginning of the contemporary grammatical system (AU) | |