Chapter 3. Movement and resumption in null possessor constructions in Brazilian Portuguese

In this paper we examine null possessor constructions in Brazilian Portuguese, which display an anaphoric behavior in some contexts but a pronominal behavior in others. We show that in absence of islands separating a null possessor from its antecedent, null possessors display properties of obligatory control and, following Hornstein (2001), we analyze these instances of null possessors as traces of movement to θ-positions. Assuming with Hornstein (2001, 2007) that movement is derivationally more economical than pronominalization, we then argue that null possessors exhibit a pronominal behavior only when they sit in a position from which a licit A-movement operation cannot be launched.