Probus最新文献

{"title":"Null objects, null nominal anaphora and antilogophoricity","authors":"Pilar Barbosa","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-2012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-2012","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses null objects (NOs) in Ibero-Romance. European Portuguese (EP) has both definite and indefinte NOs, but Castillian Spanish (CSpanish) only allows NOs when the antecedent is a bare plural nominal or a mass noun. The paper argues that these differences are related to the distribution of bare nominals in each language and proposes that the same underlying mechanism is at the root of indefinite and definite object drop, namely a rootless [<jats:sub> <jats:italic>nP</jats:italic> </jats:sub> <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> ] proform. [<jats:sub> <jats:italic>nP</jats:italic> </jats:sub> <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> ] denotes a contextually salient property, its possible interpretations being derived by general type-shifting operations. In CSpanish, the property denoted by [<jats:sub> <jats:italic>nP</jats:italic> </jats:sub> <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> ] is interpreted as a restrictive modifier of the predicate and the relevant variable is bound under VP level Existential Closure. Focusing on EP, there are striking similarities between definite NOs and other types of nominal anaphora, including epithets. In particular, like epithets, NOs are subject to an <jats:italic>Antilogophoricity Constraint</jats:italic>. This affinity between NOs and epithets constitutes a case in favor of the idea that the NO is a base-generated nominal. The difference with respect to CSpanish lies in the possibility of interpreting the null nominal by a choice function, a function maps a property onto an entity that has the property.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142266630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"D-features or ellipsis in null subject licensing? Evidence from Brazilian and European Portuguese","authors":"Ana Maria Martins, Jairo Nunes","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-2010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-2010","url":null,"abstract":"Holmberg (Holmberg, Anders. 2005. Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. <jats:italic>Linguistic Inquiry</jats:italic> 36(4). 533–564) and its revised version in Holmberg et al. (Holmberg, Anders, Aarti Nayudu &amp; Michelle Sheehan. 2009. Three partial null-subject languages: A comparison of Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, and Marathi. <jats:italic>Studia Linguistica</jats:italic> 63(1). 59–97) derive the availability of null subjects in a given language from the interaction between T with/without a D(efiniteness)-feature and the features of subject pronouns. Their theory predicts the existence of consistent null subject languages, whose T has the D-feature, and partial null subject languages, whose T lacks the D-feature. This paper examines this D-feature approach to null subjects against the empirical evidence provided by Brazilian Portuguese, a partial null subject language, and European Portuguese, a consistent null subject language, showing that it cannot account for the range of microvariation observed with respect to different null subject pronouns and the type of T (finite <jats:italic>vs.</jats:italic> participle <jats:italic>vs.</jats:italic> gerund). We argue that, in comparison, the ellipsis account of null subject licensing put forward in Martins and Nunes (Martins, Ana Maria &amp; Jairo Nunes. 2021. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages. In Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen &amp; Luisa Meroni (eds.), <jats:italic>Romance languages and linguistic theory 2018. Selected papers from “Going Romance” 32, Utrecht</jats:italic>, 171–190. Amsterdam &amp; Philadelphia: John Benjamins) fares better. It retains from Holmberg (Holmberg, Anders. 2005. Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. <jats:italic>Linguistic Inquiry</jats:italic> 36(4). 533–564 et seq.) the insight that the licensing of null subjects depends on the interaction between the features of T and the features of subject pronouns but resorts only to ϕ-features and Case. Crucially, it relies on the (theoretically and empirically) plausible assumption that the relation between abstract ϕ-features and verbal agreement morphology need not be transparent.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142207195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nondeictic accusative and dative clitics and their variant forms in European and Brazilian Portuguese","authors":"Maria Eugenia L. Duarte","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-2014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-2014","url":null,"abstract":"This article raises the hypothesis that 3rd person, accusative <jats:italic>o/a</jats:italic> (“him/her”) and dative <jats:italic>lhe</jats:italic> (“to him”/ “to her”) clitics, as well as the indefinite clitic <jats:italic>se</jats:italic> (“one”), contrary to 1st and 2nd person <jats:italic>me/te</jats:italic> (“me/you”), were never part of the grammar of the populations who acquired Portuguese as L2 in Brazil; rather, 3rd person clitic pronouns have been learned by a small number of Brazilians with school access (0.5 %), in the beginning of the 19th century. To bring support to this hypothesis, socio-historical information is presented, according to which, during about 350 years of colonization, slaved Africans and their descendants constituted the largest part of the population; their contact with several waves of Portuguese immigrant workers contributed to the emergence of Brazilian dialects differing in many aspects from European Portuguese (EP). Data from European and Brazilian Portuguese (PB) popular theater plays, written across the 19th and the 20th centuries, show that EP exhibits a robust and stable system of 3rd person accusative and dative clitics, contrary to BP. Analyses of recorded EP and BP since the 1970s attest the extremely rare use of such clitics in BP, very close to the percentages shown in the more recent plays, whereas formal writing reveals the school relative success in the effort to teach 3rd person clitics.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142207146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A gradient typology of gerund clauses: revisiting the internal and external syntax of Portuguese gerund clauses","authors":"Maria Lobo","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-2013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-2013","url":null,"abstract":"Focusing mostly on European Portuguese, this paper proposes that the internal syntax of Portuguese gerund clauses and the gradience in their degree of defectiveness may be explained by an interplay between their external syntax (locus of merge), agreement relations between embedded Tense and matrix Tense and the presence/absence of an intervening head. We first revisit the distinction between peripheral adverbial gerund clauses and central adverbial gerund clauses and show that their internal syntax correlates with their external syntax: central adverbial gerund clauses are merged in lower positions and appear to be more defective. We derive their defectiveness from the agree relation established between embedded T and matrix T. We then consider predicative gerund clauses and show that they are even more defective and restricted in their aspectual value, lacking a T head. Finally, we consider predicative gerund clauses introduced by <jats:italic>como</jats:italic> ‘as’ and show that, although they are merged in a low position, they are less defective than central adverbial gerund clauses. We attribute this mismatch between the internal and external syntax of this specific type of gerund clause to the presence of the Predicate head <jats:italic>como</jats:italic>, which intervenes between matrix T and embedded T and blocks the agreement relation.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142207192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Agree, agreement dissociation and subject ellipsis. Towards a new characterization of the Null Subject Parameter","authors":"Andrés Saab","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-2011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-2011","url":null,"abstract":"This paper offers a new characterization of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP). I contend that the NSP must be modeled referring to two main properties of the <jats:italic>Agree</jats:italic>/agreement systems: (i) presence/absence of abstract <jats:italic>Agree</jats:italic>, and (ii) presence/absence of <jats:italic>agreement dissociation</jats:italic> at PF. The first property results in the division between radical argument ellipsis languages of the Japanese type and consistent null subject languages of the Spanish type, including languages like Central Trentino, i.e., languages with some obligatory clitic subjects but with rich agreement and free inversion. The second property results in the division between consistent null subject languages and consistent non-null subject ones. The agreement dissociation hypothesis also accounts for the partial null subject type, which characterizes languages like Brazilian Portuguese that have impoverished agreement expansion at PF (perhaps, only for number features). From a theoretical point of view, this study focuses on the agreement dissociation property showing why abstract <jats:italic>Agree</jats:italic> cannot guarantee subject ellipsis even in those perplexing cases in which it produces enough agreement distinctions at PF. The reason is that only an expanded agreement morpheme adjoined to the T<jats:sup>0</jats:sup> node can serve as a licit antecedent for ellipsis of a subject D<jats:sup>0</jats:sup> head at PF. Therefore, the theory derives the bimorphemic principle in Koeneman and Zeijlstra (Koeneman, Olaf &amp; Hedde Zeijlstra. 2021. Pro-drop and the morphological structure of inflection. Ms. Available at: <jats:ext-link xmlns:xlink=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink\" ext-link-type=\"uri\" xlink:href=\"https://www.heddezeijlstra.org/bio\">https://www.heddezeijlstra.org/bio</jats:ext-link>) without further ado, i.e., the observation that null subject properties correlate with a bimorphemic T<jats:sup>0</jats:sup> node expressing tense and agreement separately.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142207193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Stress deletion or stress demotion? An acoustic study of stress in Spanish lexical compounds","authors":"Dongmei Lin, Carlos-Eduardo Piñeros","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-0002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In Spanish lexical compounds, stress on the final constituent is consistently preserved; however, it is uncertain whether stress on the initial constituent is preserved as well. Some linguists claim that stress is deleted from the initial constituent, whereas a few argue, instead, that it is demoted from primary to secondary. Given that empirical evidence has been scarce, this issue remains unresolved. To inform the debate, the present study examines all known phonetic correlates of stress in both accented and unaccented contexts. The acoustic measures of lexical compounds are compared to those of non-compound words and phrases that have a similar segmental structure. The results demonstrate that the initial constituent of lexical compounds bears secondary stress. This secondary stress, as a result of stress demotion, differs from rhetorical secondary stress both phonetically and phonologically. These findings provide fresh insights into the definitional properties as well as the prosodic structure of Spanish compounds.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141118030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Non-integrated conditionals as speech-event modifiers: evidence from Romance","authors":"Nicola Munaro","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Capitalizing on the basic distinction between central and peripheral adverbial clauses, the main aim of this contribution is to shed some light on certain left-right asymmetries in the distributional properties of integrated and non-integrated (concessive) conditional clauses in standard Italian, drawing indirect evidence from multiple complementizer constructions in (early) Romance. By exploring the distribution of preposed central conditional clauses in multiple complementizer constructions in some early Italo-Romance varieties and in modern Ibero-Romance, I argue, following previous analyses, that this kind of adverbial clauses occupy a topic-related specifier position within the left periphery of embedded clauses; similarly, in modern Italian and in some Italo-Romance varieties, central (concessive) conditional clauses may undergo fronting to the specifier of a functional projection situated within the higher Topic field, but crucially below the Force node. I claim that, unlike central conditionals, non-integrated addressee-oriented conditional clauses should be analyzed as sentential speech event modifiers generated within the specifier of a speech-act related projection in the left-periphery above the Force node of the main clause, which accounts for their peculiar distributional properties.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140616846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bilingual acquisition as the locus of syntactic change","authors":"Jürgen M. Meisel","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-2004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-2004","url":null,"abstract":"Some grammatical phenomena are more resistant to diachronic change than others. The syntactic core is particularly resilient, raising the question why this is the case and what causes the least vulnerable properties to change. Since fundamental alterations of grammars do not occur across the lifespan of adults, first language acquisition is commonly considered to be the main locus of syntactic change. Under the assumption that language contact leads to cross-linguistic interaction, early bilinguals have been claimed to be the main agents of change. I revisit this debate, focusing on head directionality and V2. Summaries of studies of various acquisition types lead to the conclusion that reanalysis in core syntax does not happen in the course of neither monolingual nor bilingual L1 acquisition. Contrary to hypotheses entertained in diachronic linguistics, neither language contact nor structural ambiguity/complexity has this effect. For core properties to change in L1, the triggering information must be contained in the input. Insufficient exposure, as in heritage language acquisition, can cause morphosyntactic change, though not in the syntactic core. Only second language acquisition exhibits such effects. L2 learners are thus the most likely agents of fundamental syntactic change. I conclude that explanations of the resilience of syntactic phenomena cannot rely exclusively on structural aspects. It results from an interaction of syntactic and developmental factors, defined by grammatical constraint, acquisition principles, and processing demands.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140597716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An experimental study on the loss of VS order in monolingual and bilingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese","authors":"Esther Rinke, Cristina Flores, Priscila Oliveira, Liliana Correia","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-2006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-2006","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents an experimental approach to subject inversion in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). We investigated the acceptability of SV and VS sentences by two groups of speakers: monolingually-raised and bilingual heritage speakers of BP, using acceptability judgment tasks to test the effect of verb type, definiteness and pragmatic context. Results confirm that BP lost VS order with the exception of unaccusative constructions. Both speaker groups accept SV orders in all contexts, rejecting VS in sentences with transitive and unergative verbs. With respect to unaccusative verbs, pragmatic context and definiteness play a role in the acceptance of VS structures: with narrow focus on the subject, monolingual speakers accept VS order with definite and indefinite postverbal subjects. However, in all-new contexts, they tend to reject definite postverbal subjects. Given this differential behavior in the two contexts, we assume that BP exhibits two different syntactic positions for postverbal subjects in unaccusative constructions. Heritage speakers of BP are generally stricter in rejecting VS order. They do not allow for postverbal definite subjects in VS clauses independent of pragmatic context, indicating that they are progressively eliminating a residual postverbal focus position in unaccusative constructions. We take this as another indication that heritage speakers may promote and accelerate ongoing diachronic change.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140597635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is there hyper-raising in European Portuguese?","authors":"Anabela Gonçalves, Madalena Colaço","doi":"10.1515/probus-2024-2005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-2005","url":null,"abstract":"Several languages allow for hyper-raising, a structure in which a DP that is interpreted as the subject of a finite complement clause is spelled-out as the subject of the matrix clause. Hyper-raising challenges certain core concepts of syntactic theory related to movement and locality. Various proposals have been made for analysing these structures, the main difference being whether the final position of the DP results from movement or not. It has often been assumed that European Portuguese, in contrast to Brazilian Portuguese, does not allow hyper-raising, or only allows it in very limited contexts. In this paper, we present empirical data extracted from written corpora and experimental results attesting to the production and acceptance of hyper-raising structures by a number of native speakers of European Portuguese. We contribute to identifying the contexts that favour hyper-raising in this variety and outline a preliminary analysis to explain what leads these speakers to produce and accept hyper-raising, while many others systematically reject it. In our proposal, this difference results from the properties of the embedded functional heads T and C, and the way in which their formal features are checked. Specifically, we propose that those speakers dissociate Case features from person-number features.","PeriodicalId":45039,"journal":{"name":"Probus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140322297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}