Edited by Anne Breitbarth, Miriam Bouzouita, Lieven Danckaert and Melissa Farasyn
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 254] 2019
► pp. 191–214
This chapter discusses morphological variation in Brazilian Portuguese, namely the clitic/tonic pronoun alternation and the variation in the morphological realization of subject-verb agreement. We argue on diachronic and synchronic grounds that while the alternation between the clitic and tonic pronoun in the 3rd person is clearly a case of competition between the conservative European grammar and the innovative Brazilian grammar, the other cases of variation are produced by the latter. Both in the case of 1st and 2nd person clitics and in the case of verbal agreement, conservative forms have innovative uses. This supports the claim that they have been reanalyzed in the new system. Clitic doubling of tonic pronouns without a preposition suggests that there was a functional specialization of the 1st and 2nd person clitic forms. As for subject-verb agreement, the licensing and interpretation of null subjects shows that the inflection is too weak to referentially identify empty categories in subject position, even when person and number are overtly realized on the verb. We conclude that part of the morphological variation due to linguistic contact is indeed integrated to the innovative grammar, with morphological elements of the old grammar surviving in apparent, but not actual, competition with new forms.