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In:Romance Linguistics 2012: Selected papers from the 42nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Cedar City, Utah, 20-22 April 2012
Edited by Jason Smith and Tabea Ihsane
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 7] 2015
► pp. 185–198

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The structure of complementizerless clauses in Classical Portuguese

Published online: 28 August 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.7.12ant
This chapter examines the structure of declarative complement sentences lacking the complementizer que in Classical Portuguese. The goal is to investigate whether such clauses manifest a CP-domain. We present a set of facts related to the position of subjects and adverbs showing that complementizerless clauses do display a left periphery layer, as a result of V-to-C movement. Following a split CP view (Rizzi 1997), we also propose that sentences without que are structures in which verb movement to the embedded C-system makes the peripheral heads Force and Fin to be projected syncretically, thus preventing the activation of discursive projections like TopP or FocP.
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