On the absence of low focus movement in Brazilian Portuguese

Author(s)

Lacerda, Renato

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: NATURAL LANGUAGE & LINGUISTIC THEORY; v. N/A, p. 37-pg., 2023-06-06.

Abstract

A number of works have assumed the existence of so-called "low focus movement" in Brazilian Portuguese, that is, focus-driven movement to a sentence-internal, postverbal position (FocP) in the left periphery of vP, in line with what was proposed by Belletti (2004) for Italian. By analyzing novel evidence from ditransitive and wh-in situ constructions, I argue that the postulation of low focus movement in Brazilian Portuguese faces a number of empirical challenges and that, contrary to the literature, such operation is in fact unavailable in the language; in other words, postverbal focalization and wh-in situ are better analyzed as being truly in situ. As a consequence, I maintain that the clausal structure of Brazilian Portuguese does not include a low focus projection such as Belletti's (2004), and that Rizzi's (1997) Focus Criterion is not operative in the language. I finally discuss the consequences of those claims to the analysis of traditional left-peripheral focalization, which I maintain is not due to the need to satisfy the Focus Criterion, but is instead licensed when other semantic and/or pragmatic effects co-occur with focalization. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 20/15877-9 - Syntax and information structure in Brazilian Portuguese
• Grantee: Renato César Lacerda Ferreira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral