Study of determiner variation in possessive nominal phrases on Portuguese history

Author(s)

Simone Azevedo Floripi

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
• Defense date: 2008-02-26

Examining board members

Charlotte Galves; João Costa; Cristina Schmitt; Heloisa Maria Moreira Lima de Almeida Salles; Sonia Maria Lazzarini Cyrino

• Advisor: Charlotte Galves

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to describe and investigate, within a diachronic perspective, the use of the determiner in possessive noun phrases in 23 Portuguese authors born between the 16th and the 19th century. During the period considered, the use of the article was variable, becoming obligatory at some point, as it can be observed nowadays in European Portuguese. This research will try to verify the contexts affected by the change and to propose an analysis for the observed facts. We adopt a minimalist approach based on Chomsky (1995), Kayne (1994) and Schoorlemmer (1998) within the Principles and Parameters Model. In order to explore the modern European Portuguese characteristics, corresponding to the last stage of the change investigated, we use the analyses by Castro (2001, 2006), Castro e Costa (2002), Miguel (2002, 2004) and Brito (2001, 2007). For our description and analysis, we use literary texts drawn from the Corpus Anotado do Português Histórico Tycho Brahe, which are freely available at www.ime.usp.br/~tycho/corpus (AU)