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In:Contrastive Studies in Verbal Valency
Edited by Lars Hellan, Andrej L. Malchukov and Michela Cennamo
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 237] 2017
► pp. 275–294

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On animacy restrictions for the null object in Brazilian Portuguese

 | University of Campinas
Published online: 30 April 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.237.09cyr
Abstract
Brazilian Portuguese null objects present a cluster of properties that supports a DP ellipsis analysis. The elided DP has its antecedent in a parallel structure and allows strict and sloppy readings. Besides those properties, null objects in this language do not allow their antecedents to be the matrix subject, and they require that their antecedents be inanimate. In this chapter, I discuss these latter two properties and I advance an analysis, in which I assume dedicated positions for different DPs. The results suggest that the animacy requirement may be overridden by the parallelism requirement. However, the exact role that animacy has in grammar and its effects on Brazilian Portuguese null objects still awaits further investigation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.On null objects in Brazilian Portuguese
    • 2.1Properties of BP null objects
    • 2.2Analyzing null objects in BP
  • 3.On animacy in BP null objects
  • 4.On parallelism requirements
  • 5.On argument structure and the parallelism requiremen
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (59)
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