In:Studies on Variation in Portuguese
Edited by Pilar Barbosa, Maria da Conceição de Paiva and Celeste Rodrigues
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 14] 2017
► pp. 279–300
Chapter 12The Portuguese inflected infinitive across varieties
Published online: 2 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.14.12fie
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.14.12fie
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to investigate the properties and distribution of the inflected infinitive in different varieties of Portuguese, both from a diachronic and a synchronic perspective. Considering the development of the inflected infinitive from the 12th century up to the present, we argue that there are three types of inflected infinitives in Portuguese, which differ in their degree of finiteness, ranging from a form that exhibits similar characteristics to finite verb forms to a form which behaves like an uninflected infinitive.
Keywords: finiteness, inflected infinitives, Portuguese, diachrony, synchrony, syntax, control verbs
Article outline
- 1.Overview
- 2.The inflected infinitive in contemporary Romance languages
- 3.The inflected infinitive in Portuguese: Diachronic and synchronic facts
- 3.1Diachrony
- 3.1.1Old Portuguese (13th – 15th centuries)
- 3.1.2Classical Portuguese (16th – 19th centuries)
- 3.1.3Summary of the diachronic data
- 3.2Contemporary varieties
- 3.1Diachrony
- 4.Theinflected infinitive in contemporary Portuguese
- 5.Final remarks
Acknowledgments Notes References
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