Finite control: Where movement goes wrong in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

The aim of the present article is to deconstruct a specific line of argumentation used by Boeckx, Hornstein, and Nunes (2010)

On the movement analysis of null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese: Experimental results from extraction of embedded subjects

“…These results support Rodrigues's (2004) proposal that the finite embedded clause associated with convencer in BP is not a real complement but some sort of adjunct, thus invalidating Modesto's (2000Modesto's ( , 2011 argument. The conclusion is that subject orientation in sentences like (16) does not provide empirical evidence against the movement approach to definite null subjects in BP, On the movement analysis of null subjects Isogloss 2018, 4/1 in Brazilian Portuguese 111 for it can be captured in terms of sideward movement, as argued for by Rodrigues's (2004).…”

“…(Modesto 2011: 15-16) Establishing the grammaticality status of sentences such as (8) and (13a) therefore becomes a central issue on the debate on grammatical nature of null subjects in BP. Bearing that in mind, in this paper we subject the contradicting judgments reported by Rodrigues (2004) and Modesto (2011) to a closer scrutiny. We developed an acceptability experiment to test judgments by BP speakers on extraction of subjects of finite clauses, comparing their judgments on standard complement and adjunct clauses with their judgments on parallel cases involving convencer 7 .…”

“…As discussed in section 2, subject extraction out of finite clauses associated with verbs like convencer in BP may provide a crucial basis for us to evaluate Modesto's (2000Modesto's ( , 2011 empirical argument against analyzing definite null subjects in BP in terms of Hornstein's (1999Hornstein's ( , 2001) MTC, as advocated by Ferreira 2000, Rodrigues 2002and Nunes 2008 If the embedded clause of a sentence such as (4), for instance, repeated below in (16), turns out to function as a complement, Modesto's argument is a valid one, for movement of the embedded subject to the matrix subject position should be blocked by the intervening object. On the other hand, if it turns out to function as an adjunct, as proposed by Rodrigues (2004), Modesto's point becomes mute, for the MTC takes adjunct control to be derived via sideward movement of the subject of the will-be adjunct to the subject position of the subordinating clause (see Hornstein 1999Hornstein , 2001; in this case, an object in the subordinating clause does not count as an intervener, for it does not c-command the trace of the moved subject (see (11) and (12)).…”

“…In this paper we examine an empirical challenge raised by Modesto (2000Modesto ( , 2011 to approaches that analyze null subjects in BP as traces of A-movement (cf. Ferreira 2000, Rodrigues 2002, and Nunes 2008.…”

“…Modesto (2000Modesto ( , 2011 notes that verbs like avisar 'to warn', informar 'to inform', alertar 'to alert', and prevenir 'to forewarn', among others, exhibit the same pattern as convencer 'to convince'. However, given that his argument is formulated based on examples exclusively involving convencer, we decided to also use only this verb in the test cases in order to avoid a potential noise introduced by eventual lexical differences within this class of verbs.…”