European and Brazilian Portuguese have VP ellipsis licensed by auxiliary and main verbs. However, these varieties of Portuguese show some differences concerning the licensing and identification of the elliptical constituent whenever sequences of verbs including the main verb are involved. We will claim that these differences are mainly due to the functional projections required as licensers of the elliptical VP. 1 We will leave the distinction between VP ellipsis and Null Complement Anaphora for future work.

The core properties of VP ellipsis in English and Portuguese may be captured assuming that the elliptical constituent is licensed under local c-command by a verbal element in a sentence functional head. However, the lack of VP ellipsis in most Romance languages and in German, despite the existence of verb movement to sentence functional projections in these languages, suggests that a parameter is involved. Empirical evidence indicates that this parametric variation should not be attributed to a specific functional head because the functional head occupied by the verbal licenser may vary across languages and language varieties. So we will claim that the existence vs. absence of VP ellipsis in the languages considered in this study is due to the features of the functional head that intervenes between the verbal licenser and the elliptical vP phase.

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This paper addresses two issues, the categorial nature of (pronominal)

Hankamer and Sag (1976) and Sag (1980) proposed a distinction between two types of elliptical constructions based on the two ways anaphoric elements could be assigned interpretations: VXUIDFH DQG GHHS DQDSKRUD. While deep anaphora would be inserted in the underlying syntactic representations, surface anaphora would be originated by the deletion of syntactic structures resulting from the application of previous operations. Two properties, taken as related, were assumed to crucially distinguish these two types of anaphora: deep anaphora might be recovered by the situational context and not exhibit internal structure in Syntax, as opposed to surface anaphora, which requires a linguistic antecedent and presents internal structure. Hankamer and Sag attributed these differences to the interpretative devices involved: a deep anaphor would be assigned interpretation by a rule of semantic interpretation relating it to a salient situational or linguistic context 1 , while surface anaphora results from the deletion of a linguistic expression under identity (or non-distinctness) with a linguistic antecedent. Based on its behaviour with respect to these properties, Hankamer and Sag characterized 1XOO &RPSOHPHQW $QDSKRUD (NCA) in English as deep anaphora. * We acknowledge the audience of the *RLQJ 5RPDQFH &RQIHUHQFH , for valuable comments on this paper. We are particularly indebted to Ana Bartra, Denis Delfitto, Ana Martins, Jairo Nunes and Carme Picallo, and especially to two anonymous reviewers of a previous version of this paper. 1 Hankamer and Sag (1976) suggest that deep anaphora phenomena are inserted in deep structure and assigned a semantic interpretation by a projection rule, or alternatively, that they are inserted in more abstract structures that represent semantic interpretation. Sag (1980), reviewing this analysis in terms of Chomsky's (1976) framework, claims that deep anaphora is interpreted by an interpretative rule applying at LF.

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Portuguese FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (project PEst-OE/LIN/UI0214/2013). We also thanks an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper. (9) A: A empregada colocou os livros na estante?the housemaid put the books on-the shelf 'Did the housemaid put the books on the shelf?' B: Sim, colocou __.Yes, put Yes, she did.Within the Principles and Parameters framework, VPE analyses mainly focused on the licensing condition(s) on the elliptical constituent and the recovering strategy of ellipsis. We will retain these topics in the study of VPE in EP and BP.