Chapter 9
Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages
This paper rethinks Holmberg’s (2005) characterization of partial vs. consistent null subject languages (NSL) based on data from Brazilian and European Portuguese, the former a partial, the latter a consistent NSL. The paper proposes that rather than overt morphological distinctions, what is relevant for null subject licensing is the underlying feature specification of the verbal inflection, after agreement between T and a pronominal subject values the relevant person/number/gender/Case feature. Hence, only close inspection of the pronominal and agreement systems of individual NSLs permits an adequate characterization of them, for the same language may behave as a ‘partial’, ‘consistent’, or ‘radical’ NSL depending on the morphological feature specification of its nominative pronouns and T heads.
Keywords: null subjects, consistent/partial pro-drop languages, ellipsis, verbal agreement morphology, pronominal system, feature valuation, feature prominence, person, number, gender, case
Article outline
- 1.Consistent, partial, and radical pro-drop languages: Questions and aim of the paper
- 2.A fine-grained investigation on verbal agreement and null subject licensing in BP and EP
- 3.Null subjects without ‘rich agreement’: Participial clauses
- 4.Null subjects without ϕ-agreement: Gerund clauses
- 5.Concluding remarks
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Acknowledgements
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Notes
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References