Chapter 2. Null subjects and finite control in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

The paper discusses the restricted distribution and interpretation of "referential" null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). It shows that referential null subjects in BP behave like obligatorily controlled PRO and argues, following Hornstein (1999, 2001), that they should be analyzed as traces (deleted copies) of A-movement. The proposal is that with the weakening of the verbal inflection in BP, finite Ts became ambiguous in bearing a complete or an incomplete set of φ-features. When the incomplete version is selected in an embedded clause, T is not able to value the Case of the DP in its Spec, which then remains active and may undergo further A-movement. If the movement lands in a θ-position, we obtain a finite control construction; if the landing site is not a θ-position, we obtain a hyper-raising construction, instead. * This paper is based on Chapter 2 of Ferreira (2000). A previous version appeared as Ferreira (2004). I would like to express my gratitude to Jairo Nunes, for his constant help and feedback. For comments and criticism on earlier versions, I would like to thank

Finite control: Where movement goes wrong in Brazilian Portuguese

“…Negrão & Müller 1996). The difference in behavior between Spanish and BP null subjects becomes very clear in Ferreira's (2009) Montalbetti explains the ungrammaticality of (06a) with his "Overt Pronoun Constraint". The grammaticality of (07a) seems to indicate that, either the OPC is not effective in BP, or that the overt pronoun in BP does not alternate with a null pronoun in that position, because in such contexts the OPC does not apply (even in Spanish).…”

“…As mentioned above, the facts in (01) led Ferreira (2000Ferreira ( , 2009 and Rodrigues (2004) to analyze the empty category in (01b) as a trace of A-movement of the DP o pai do Pedro from embedded subject position to the subject position of the higher (intermediate) clause, passing through a θ-position related to the verb achar 'to think'. These analyses presuppose that Agree with the most embedded head T was not able to value the Case feature of the DP o pai do Pedro, which is then free to move to a position in the higher vP (where it receives a second θ-role) and from there to Spec IP of the intermediate clause.…”

The theory and syntactic representation of control structures: An analysis from Amharic

“…While later developments (Chomsky & Lasnik 1993) claim that it is plausible for PRO to bear a (null) case by valuation with [+tense] of the control clause (Martin 1992(Martin , 2001Bošković 1996Bošković , 1997, the argument that [+tense, +finite] of the control clause assigns nominative case to its subject remains largely unchallenged. However, various facts from Albanian (Dobrovie-Sorin 1994), Greek (Varlokosta & Hornstein 1993), Hebrew (Landau 2004) and Portuguese Brazilian (Ferreira 2004(Ferreira , 2009Boeckx, Hornstein & Nunes 2010) show clearly finite control is attested across languages (see Section 6). One salient distinction of Amharic control clauses is that they must be marked by the CM li-.…”

“…[-T]), hence the motivation for A-movement. Another example which they cite is Brazilian Portuguese (BP) (Rodrigues 2002(Rodrigues , 2004Ferreira 2004Ferreira , 2009. Example (73a) shows that BP does not allow third-person singular pro-drop, whereas (73b) is a case of obligatory control (OC) into indicative clauses:…”

“…Brazilian Portuguese (Rodrigues 2002(Rodrigues , 2004Ferreira 2004Ferreira , 2009 Boeckx, Hornstein & Nunes (2010) claim that BP presents a strong case in favor of the MTC. Their reasoning is that the verbal paradigm in BP distinguishes various types of phifeatures.…”