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Part of
Romance Linguistics 2012: Selected papers from the 42nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Cedar City, Utah, 20-22 April 2012
Edited by Jason Smith and Tabea Ihsane
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 7] 2015
► pp. 185–198

The structure of complementizerless clauses in Classical Portuguese

This chapter examines the structure of declarative complement sentences lacking the complementizer que in Classical Portuguese. The goal is to investigate whether such clauses manifest a CP-domain. We present a set of facts related to the position of subjects and adverbs showing that complementizerless clauses do display a left periphery layer, as a result of V-to-C movement. Following a split CP view (Rizzi 1997), we also propose that sentences without que are structures in which verb movement to the embedded C-system makes the peripheral heads Force and Fin to be projected syncretically, thus preventing the activation of discursive projections like TopP or FocP.
Published online: 28 August 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.7.12ant
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