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In:Complement Clauses in Portuguese: Syntax and acquisition
Edited by Ana Lúcia Santos and Anabela Gonçalves
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 17] 2018
► pp. 59–100

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Inflected infinitives in Brazilian Portuguese and the theory of Control

 | University of São Paulo
Published online: 16 August 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.17.03mod
In this chapter, we describe the distribution of inflected infinitives in Brazilian Portuguese (BP); discuss the possible interpretations of their subjects when null and address the debate between Modesto (2010) and proponents of the movement theory of Control (MTC, particularly Boeckx & Hornstein, 2006; Rodrigues & Hornstein, 2013) as to whether inflected infinitives constitute a serious argument against the MTC. Data were experimentally tested using a grammaticality judgment task, presented here. Results indicate that inflected infinitives are perfectly grammatical in obligatory Control contexts for BP speakers; but its grammaticality is uncertain in non-control contexts, supporting Modesto’s claims.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.BP inflection and pro-drop
  • 3. Rodrigues and Hornstein (2013)
    • 3.1The experiment
    • 3.2Partial Control structures
      • 3.2.1The complex DP analysis
      • 3.2.2Inflected infinitives are controlled, null finite subjects are not
    • 3.3BP has nonfinite inflected clauses
    • 3.4Epicene agreement and null finite subjects in Brazilian Portuguese
  • 4.The distribution of inflected infinitives in BP
  • 5.Making sense of the data
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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Landau, Idan
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Barbosa, Pilar
2021. Alleged obligatorily controlled inflected infinitives. In Non-canonical control in a cross-linguistic perspective [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 270], ► pp. 35 ff. DOI logo
Sheehan, Michelle, Martin Schäfer & Maria Carmen Parafita Couto
2019. Crowdsourcing and Minority Languages: The Case of Galician Inflected Infinitives1. Frontiers in Psychology 10 DOI logo
Fiéis, Alexandra & Ana Madeira
2017. The Portuguese inflected infinitive across varieties. In Studies on Variation in Portuguese [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 14], ► pp. 279 ff. DOI logo

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