Cover not available

In:Null Objects from a Cross-Linguistic and Developmental Perspective
Edited by Pilar Barbosa and Cristina Flores
[Language Faculty and Beyond 19] 2025
► pp. 114–140

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Animacy restrictions on null objects in European Portuguese

 | Goethe University Frankfurt
Published online: 15 April 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.19.05rin
Abstract
This paper investigates the role of animacy for the distribution of clitics and null objects in European Portuguese. Existing corpus data suggest that in spontaneous speech speakers prefer null objects with inanimate referents but clitics with animate referents. A new acceptability judgment experiment shows that clitics receive high acceptance rates with animate and inanimate referents but null objects are only marginally accepted with animates. I propose that the variation between null objects and clitics is determined by two factors: first, register (Standard Portuguese vs. colloquial speech) and second, the structure and feature composition of clitic pronouns and null objects.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous research on null objects and animacy in Portuguese
    • 2.1Animacy restrictions in Brazilian Portuguese
    • 2.2Animacy effects in European Portuguese? Previous findings
    • 2.3Open research questions
  • 3.Spontaneous speech corpus analysis
    • 3.1Methodology
    • 3.2Results
  • 4.Grammaticality judgment data
    • 4.1Methodology
    • 4.2Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Summary and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (39)
References
Aissen, J. (2003). Differential Object Marking: Iconicity vs. Economy. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 21. 435–483. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barbosa, P. (coord.) (2011–2014). Perfil Sociolinguístico da Fala Bracarense. Braga: Universidade do Minho. URL: [URL]
(2019). Pro as a Minimal nP: Toward a Unified Approach to Pro-Drop. Linguistic Inquiry 50: 3. 487–526. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2024). Null objects, null nominal anaphora and antilogophoricity. Probus 36, 251–281. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B. & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67(1), 1–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bianchi, V., & Figueiredo-Silva, M. C. (1994). On some properties of agreement-object in Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. In M. Mazzola (Ed.), Issues and theory in Romance linguistics (pp. 181–197). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bossong, G. (1985). Differentielle Objektmarkierung in den Neuiranischen Sprachen, Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castro, T., Rothman, J., & Westergaard, M. (2017). On the Directionality of Cross-Linguistic Effects in Bidialectal Bilingualism. Frontiers in Psychology 8: 1382, 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1979). Definite and Animate Direct Objects: A Natural Class. Linguistica silesiana 3, 13–21.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Costa, J., & Duarte, I. (2003). Objectos nulos em debate. In I. Castro & I. Duarte (Eds.), Razões e emoção. Miscelânea de estudos em homenagem a Maria Helena Mira Mateus, (pp. 249–260), Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, W. (1988). Agreement vs. Case Marking and Direct Objects. In M. Barlow and C. Ferguson (Eds.), Agreement in Natural Language: Approaches, Theories, Descriptions (pp. 159–179), Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cyrino, S. (1994). O objeto nulo no português brasileiro: um estudo sintático-diacrônico. Universidade Estadual de Campinas: PhD dissertation.
(2021). Brazilian Portuguese null objects and Spanish differential object marking. In A. Bárány, T. Biberauer, J. Douglas & S. Vikner (Eds.), Syntactic architecture and its consequences III: Inside syntax (pp. 399–427). Berlin: Language Science Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cyrino, S., Duarte, M. L. & Kato, M. A. (2000). Visible subjects and invisible clitics in Brazilian Portuguese. In M. Kato & E. V. Negrão (Eds.). Brazilian Portuguese and the null subject parameter (pp. 55–73). Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert & Madrid: Iberoamericana. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duarte, M. E. L. (1986). Variação e sintaxe: Clítico acusativo, pronome lexical e categoria vazia no português do Brasil. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo: Unpublished Masterthesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, N., Ibnbari, L., & Taube, S. (2013). Missing objects as Topic Drop. Lingua: International review of general linguistics, 145–169. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernández Ordóñez, I. (1999). Leísmo, laísmo y loísmo. In Ignacio Bosque, Violeta Demonte (Eds.). Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española. Tomo 1: Sintaxis básica de las clases de palabras (pp. 1317–1397). Madrid: Espasa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flores, C., Rinke, E. & Azevedo, C. (2017). Object realization across generations. A closer look on the spontaneous speech of Portuguese first and second generation migrants. In Di Domenico, E. (Ed.). Syntax complexity from a language acquisition perspective (pp. 179–206). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Galves, C. (2018). Theoretical, empirical and methodological approaches for studying the Afro-Brazilian continuum of Portuguese. In Laura Álvarez López and Juanito Ornelas de Avelar (Eds.). The Portuguese Language Continuum in Africa and Brazil (pp. 17–42). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heap, D. (2002). Morphological Complexity and Spanish Object Clitic Variation. In Wiltshire, Caroline R. & Joaquim Camps (Eds.). Romance Phonology and Variation. Selected Papers from the 30th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, Gainesville, Florida (pp. 55–68). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kato, M. A. (2011). A natureza do objeto nulo e do nome nulo no Português Europeu e no Português Brasileiro. Revista Intercâmbio, 13–27.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kato, M. A., Martins, A. M. & Nunes, J. (2023). The syntax of Portuguese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leonetti, M. (2004). Specificity and Differential Object Marking in Spanish. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 3, 75–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López, L. (2012). Indefinite objects: Scrambling, choice functions, and differential marking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montrul, S. & Bowles, M. (2009). Back to basics: Incomplete knowledge of Differential Object Marking in Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12 (03), 363–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Omena, N. (1978). Pronome Pessoal de Terceira Pessoa: suas Formas Variantes em Função Acusativa. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro: Unpublished Masterthesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ormazabal, J. & Romero, J. (2007). The object agreement constraint. Natural Language e Linguistic Theory 25, 315–347. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team (2020). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. [URL]
Raposo, E. P. (1986). On the Null Object in European Portuguese. In Osvaldo Jaeggli & Carmen Silva Corvalán (Eds.). Studies in Romance Linguistics (pp. 373–390). Foris: Dordrecht. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1998). Definite/Zero alternations in Portuguese: Towards a unification of topic constructions. In Schwegler, Armin, Bernard Tranel & Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (eds.). Romance Linguistics: Theoretical Perspectives. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). Objetos nulos e CLLD. Uma teoria unificada. Revista da ABRALIN 3(1–2), 41–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, M. (2008). Defective Agree, Case Alternations, and the Prominence of Person. In Marc Richards & Andrej L. Malchukov (Eds.), Scales (pp. 137–161), Universität Leipzig: Linguistische Arbeitsberichte 86.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rinke, E., Flores, C., & Barbosa, P. (2018). Null objects in the spontaneous speech of monolingual and bilingual speakers of European Portuguese. Probus, International Journal of Latin and Romance Linguistics 30 (1), 93–120. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwenter, S. A. & Silva, G. V. (2003). Anaphoric Direct Objects in spoken Brazilian Portuguese: Semantics and pragmatics. Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana Vol. 1, No. 2 (2), El español de los EE.UU, 99–123.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwenter, S. A. (2014). Two kinds of differential object marking in Portuguese and Spanish. In Amaral, P. & Carvalho, A. M. (Eds.). Portuguese/Spanish interfaces (pp. 237–260). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tarallo, F. (1983). Relativization Strategies in Brazilian Portuguese. University of Pennsylvania: PhD thesis.
Torrego, E. (1998). The dependencies of objects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Fiéis, Alexandra & Joana Teixeira
2025. Does the Referential Hierarchy influence subject and object omission in L2 English?. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 11:7 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue