Subject Positions And Interfaces: The Case Of European Portuguese (Studies in Generative Grammar)

Subject Positions and Interfaces: The Case of European Portuguese

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Studies in Generative Grammar 73

Editors

Jan KosterHarry van der HulstHenk van Riemsdijk

Mouton de GruyterBerlin · New York

Subject Positions and Interfaces:The Case of European Portuguese

by

Joao Costa

Mouton de GruyterBerlin · New York

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Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1. Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2. Grammar model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.3. Assumptions on V-movement and adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2. Preverbal subjects: Spec,IP or left-dislocated? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

A. Multiple preposing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13B. Unstressed negative QPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14C. No minimality effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14D. Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15E. Unmarkedness of SVO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15F. Raising constructions and definiteness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17G. Pronominal doubling contextually limited (Costa 2000) . . . . . . 18H. Subject positions in C-less if-clauses (Costa and Galves 2002) . . 19I. Preverbal and postverbal pronominal doubling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3. Postverbal subjects: syntax and discourse – VSO and VOS orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.1. Post-verbal subjects in VSO context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233.2. Postverbal subjects in VOS contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303.3. Objects in VOS: Scrambling in European Portuguese . . . . . . . . 35

4. Inversion and information structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714.2. Focus-movement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724.3. Word order and focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 784.4. Mapping syntax-discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814.5. No focus-movement in Portuguese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914.6. Phases, locality and subjects in Spec, VP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974.7. Related evidence: agreement in copular constructions . . . . . . . 1004.8. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

5. Optionality and left-dislocated subjects: semantic and discourse properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

5.1. SV and VS in unaccusative contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1075.1.1. Lack of agreement in postverbal position . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095.1.2. Hypothesis and arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125.1.3. Summing up: is there optionality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

5.2. VSO and SVO in answers to multiple wh-questions . . . . . . . . . 1195.2.1. Semantic properties of multiple-wh questions . . . . . . . . 1205.2.2. Syntactic consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

6. Subjects in Spec,TP and the interface with morphology . . . . . . . 129

6.1. Spec,TP available in I-to-C contexts only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1296.2. The interface with morphology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1316.3. The non-parametric availability of Spec,TP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

7. Syntactic outputs and the interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

7.1. The behaviour of ditransitives in English and in European Portuguese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

7.2. The behaviour of possessives in Portuguese and Italian . . . . . . 1537.3. The differences between subject-verb inversion

in Brazilian and European Portuguese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1557.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

8. Summary and conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Appendix: On the nature of agreement in European Portuguese . . . 163

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1631. The facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

1.1. DP-internal number agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1651.2. Subject-verb agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1671.3. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

2. Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1743. Further predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1824. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

vi Contents

Foreword

This book is a much revised version of my 1998 dissertation, integratingsome of the work developed afterwards.The book shares with the original work the plan of analyzing patterns ofword order variation. However, it does not focus only on the interface withdiscourse, but also on the interfaces between syntax and semantics and syn-tax and prosody. By doing so, it is possible to discuss and analyze moredata, explaining not only the differences between subjects in Spec,Agr andSpec,VP, but also accommodating data involving Spec,TP and left-dislo-cated subjects.

I would like to thank all colleagues who have contributed to this researchwith comments, questions and suggestions.

Special thanks to my family and friends for making life a really nice thing!

1. Introduction

European Portuguese, like other Romance languages, displays a great amountof word order variation. Out of the six logically possible permutationsbetween Subject, Verb and Complement in a transitive sentence, five arepossible: SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS and OSV.

The primary goal of this book is to provide an analysis of the severalpositions where the subject may surface in European Portuguese. Departingfrom an architecture of the clause as sketched in early minimalist work,containing two subject-related functional categories above VP (AgrP andTP), it is shown that the subject may surface in all potential landing sites:Spec,AgrP, Spec,TP and Spec,VP. Moreover, just like any other argument ofthe clause, it is claimed that subjects also have the possibility of surfacing ina left-dislocated position, arguably adjoining to the clause’s left periphery.

It is shown that there is no free variation. Each of these positions may beoccupied by the subject, only if two requirements are met:

i) The position is made available by syntax;

ii) The position does not violate any interface condition.

In other words, the following model is argued for: syntax generates legiti-mate outputs. At the interface levels, each output may be selected or filtredout, according to requirements of the interface. These interface licensingconditions operate in the following way for each of the identified surfacepositions:

1. Spec,VP – The subject may surface in Spec, VP, because it is able tocheck Case under Agree (Chomsky 2000). Likewise, Case may bechecked under Move. The consequence is that both SVO and VSO out-puts are equally well-formed from a syntactic point of view. It is arguedthat Information Structure constraints and their interplay with prosodymay choose a VSO ouput over an SVO order, when the subject is thefocus of the sentence and must receive the sentence’s nuclear stress.

2. Spec,TP – This position provides an interesting puzzle. Looking atadverb positions, it appears that Spec,TP is an available surface positionfor subjects in I-to-C contexts. This observation is explained if the inter-face with morphology is taken into account. It is argued that the subjectcannot be stranded in Spec,TP when the subject is in T, since it blocksthe merger of the heads Agr and T.

3. Left-dislocation and Spec,AgrP – Non-focused preverbal subjects areshown to occupy the specifier of the topmost functional category of theinflectional domain. This goes against recent claims in the literature thatpreverbal subjects in null subject languages are left-dislocated. Never-theless, it is shown that the fact that preverbal subjects occupy an A-position does not imply that they necessarily must occupy an A-position.Looking at contexts of apparent optionality in answers to multiple wh-questions, it may be shown that in the appropriate context subjects maybe left-dislocated. For a subject to appear in adjunction to the clause, itmust meet semantic requirements such as non-exhaustivity.

The picture emerging from the proposal made in this book is the following:syntax proper does not need to refer to conditions best placed at the inter-face. All that is needed from syntax is that it generates an array of well-formed outputs. Such outputs may be evaluated a posteriori by each of theinterfaces. If they meet requirements of the interface, they are selected aslegitimate. If, on the contrary, some interface condition is violated, they areruled out. Under this approach, three independent results are derived: i) anexplanation is found for the patterns of word order variation; ii) syntaxproper may be reduced to its own tools, not having to manipulate semantic,discourse or prosodic variables; iii) the intuition that European Portugueseis an SVO language is derived: this word order corresponds to the one inwhich the subject occupies the only specifier position in which the otherinterfaces play no role.

In this first chapter, a preview of the book is presented. Also, some generalassumptions necessary for the analyses to be developed are spelt out andmotivated.

2 Introduction

1.1. Preview

In the past few years, some authors have proposed that there is no preverbalA-position for subjects in Null Subject languages (Barbosa 1995; Alexiadouand Anagnostopoulou 1998; among many others). If this proposal is right, itis pointless to investigate the difference between subjects in Spec,IP(=Spec,AgrP) and subjects stranded in Spec, VP. Chapter 2 tests the proposalthat preverbal subjects are left-dislocated in European Portuguese, providingevidence showing that this analysis makes wrong predictions in severalrespects. The tests presented involve a comparison with the syntactic behaviorof left-dislocated (non-subject) constituents, an evaluation of definitenesseffects, and the observation of agreement facts. The conclusion drawn is thatpreverbal subjects may occupy an A-position in European Portuguese, whichprecludes a generalization stating that this is impossible in Null SubjectLanguages.

The third chapter investigates the position of the subject in VSO and VOSorders. Arguments are presented showing that postverbal subjects may beanalyzed as stranded in Spec, VP, which does not exclude an I-to-C analysisfor different sorts of inversion. It is further contended that the object in VOSorders displays properties reminiscent of the ones found in Germanic short-distance-scrambling. It is therefore claimed that VOS is analyzed as ainvolving a scrambled complement and a subject in Spec, VP. This type ofanalysis is compared to alternatives, in particular to remnant-movementproposals. A first approximation to the contexts in which inversion is legiti-mate is made, suggesting that the interface between syntax and discoursemay be at play.

The contexts in which inversion orders are produced is investigated, andthe conclusion reached is that subjects are in Spec, VP only if they arefocused. This observation will favor an implementation of Reinhart’s (1995)analysis of scrambling in Germanic for these data in terms of an interfacebetween syntax, information structure and prosody. The type of interfacebetween Information Structure, syntax and prosody is further explored inchapter 4. It is argued that there is no need to assume that focused constitu-ents move to discourse-related functional categories, and that the relevantdata follow from an algorithm for sentence-stress assignment. The relationsfound between word order and discourse context allow for clearly sayingthat there basically is no free variation. In the final section of this chapter, itis argued that syntax generates multiple outputs that can be used for differ-ent discourse purposes, because Case can be licensed under Move or Agree.

Preview 3

Locality effects on inversion and sensitivity to phase-boundaries supportingthis analysis are presented.

Chapter 5 investigates a case of apparent optionality, which would con-tradict the conclusion of the previous chapter. In answers to multiple wh-questions of the type who did what?, both SVO and VSO are legitimate.The conclusions drawn from a closer look at the two word orders are thefollowing: i) they are not semantically equivalent: the postverbal subject isnot a true focus, and it must be non-exhaustive; ii) the postverbal subjectbehaves as if it is left-dislocated. These two conclusions combined showthat the interface with semantics is also relevant for deriving all word orderpatterns found, and that, as defended in chapter 2, the claim that preverbalsubjects are in Spec,AgrP and the claim that preverbal subjects may be left-dislocated do not exclude each other, provided that appropriate semanticand discourse conditions are met.

Chapter 6 deals with the availability of Spec,TP as a surface position forthe subject. It is shown that, in declarative SVO sentences, this is not a legiti-mate landing site. However, if there is I-to-C movement, as in wh-questions,the subject may surface in Spec,TP. The explanation for this puzzle relatesthe fact that there is short V-to-I movement and explores the interfacebetween syntax and morphology, adapting Bobaljik’s (1995) solutions forthe availability of Spec,TP in Germanic languages. It is argued that, sincethe verb does not move to Agr, for Agr and T morphology to merge, these twoheads must be adjacent. For the adjacency requirement to be met, Spec,TPmust be empty. In I-to-C contexts, the verb must move from T-to-Agr forlocality reasons, and the adjacency is no longer relevant, which explains therestricted availability of this position.

In the last chapter, I summarize the results obtained throughout the book,discussing in further detail the relation between the syntactic componentand the interfaces. In particular, it is argued that the interfaces act as filtersor as selectors of multiple outputs generated in the syntactic component.According to this view, syntax proper excludes interface considerations, anddoes not have to integrate discourse, prosodic or morphological notions.

1.2. Grammar model

Since this book deals with interface issues, it is important to spell out thebasic assumptions concerning the relation established between the severalgrammar components. I will be basically assuming a model of grammar, as

4 Introduction

depicted in Chomksy (1995), combining it with proposals made in Reinhart(1995) for the interplay between syntax and discourse, and in Halle andMarantz (1993) for the interface between syntax and morphology. According-ly, I assume that the output of syntax after Spell-Out feeds a morphologicalcomponent of the grammar. I further assume that the level of InformationStructure, in which notions such as topic and focus play a role, has access tothe syntactic outputs. Obviously, these two considerations make it necessaryto free syntax from discourse-related rules or operations as well as from de-riving all morphological aspects. These two consequences will be exploredin chapter 4 and 6, respectively. The architecture assumed is summarized inthe schema in (1):

(1) Lexicon

Spell-Out Morphology PF

Information StructureLF

As emphasized by many authors, in particular in the last decade (Adger1994; Reinhart 1995; Zubizarreta 1998; Costa 1998), this type of articulatedmodel of the grammar opens up possibilities for dealing with apparently freeword order. If syntax generates multiple converging outputs, each one of suchoutputs may be used in compliance with different requirements of one of theinterfaces. Alternatively, syntax may generate multiple outputs, and some ofthem may be ruled out at one of the interface levels. The former situationwill be argued for to explain the alternation between SV and VS orders inPortuguese. As mentioned above, I will argue that a subject may be licensedboth in Spec, VP and in Spec,IP. These two outputs may be used for satisfy-ing different requirements of the interfaces with prosody and informationstructure. The latter case will also be explored. It will be argued that somesubject positions are not available, because the presence of the subject inthat specific position violates some interface requirement. This will be theargument built for subjects in Spec,TP.

The task I will be doing in this book is therefore the following. Let usassume a clause structure as the one proposed in Pollock (1989) and revisedin Belletti (1990):

(2) [AgrP [TP [VP ]]]

Grammar model 5

According to this structure, in principle, there are three A-positions wherethe subject can surface. Moreover, if there are processes of left-dislocation,the subject can also surface in the left periphery. Since it is known that thereis no free variation, it must be established if all positions must be used, andunder what conditions.

1.3. Assumptions on V-movement and adverbs

In most cases to be dealt with, the position of the subject will be determinedby looking also at the position of the verb. This is very obvious for the alter-nation between SV and VS. As was made clear above, I will explore the pat-terns of word order variation found assuming that there are several surfacepositions for the subject. Therefore, it must be previously established wherethe verb is, in order to make it possible to take its position as a valid diagnos-tic for detecting subject positions. Likewise, since adverbs are a traditionaldiagnostic to detect V-movement and different landing sites for arguments,it must be established which adverbs are used as a diagnostic, motivatingtheir usage. The goal of this section is therefore to spell out my assumptionsconcerning V-movement and adverb placement.

In Costa (1996, 1998), it is argued that, in European Portuguese, verbs domove out of VP, but do not target the highest functional head. Assuming theclause articulation in (2), the proposal made is that V moves to T, not reach-ing Agr. Let us review the evidence in favor of this analysis. The first fact tobe mentioned is the following: like French infinitives, verbs in EuropeanPortuguese may either precede or follow an adverb:

(3) a. O João ontem leu o livro.João yesterday read the book

b. O João leu ontem o livro.João read yesterday the book

In his (1989) paper, for dealing with similar French data, Pollock suggeststhat the verb may either stay inside VP or move up to Agr. Given the currenttrend to eliminate optionality from the grammar, Pollock (1994b) makes anattempt to circumvent this problem by saying that when there is optionalmovement, what is at stake is the occurrence of forms which are morpho-logically ambiguous. This would be the case for French infinitives, which

6 Introduction

would allow an interpretation either as nominal forms or as verbal forms.Since in French, only verbal elements do move to I, only when the infinitivalforms are interpreted as verbal will this movement be required. If the infini-tival form is interpreted as nominal, movement is not induced. This analysisis however not tenable for European Portuguese, since the case of apparentoptional verb movement just presented cannot be analyzed in terms of mor-phological ambiguity. The form leu/read in (3) is unambiguously a verbalform in the third person singular. The mechanism proposed by Pollock(1994b) for the optional movement of French infinitives may not be involvedhere, since this form is not subject to be analyzed as a nominal element.

An alternative view is to assume that adverbs may be adjoined to differentprojections. Such an assumption, combined with the possibility of movingthe verb to intermediate functional projections (which is also assumed inPollock 1989), would then derive the word order facts in Portuguese. (4)illustrates the relevant analysis:

(4) [AgrSP O João [TP leu [VP tV o livro]]]

If the adverb ontem is adjoined to TP, we get the ‘English-like order’: S-Adv-V-O:

(5) [AgrSP O João [TP ontem [TP leu [VP tV o livro]]]]

If the adverb is adjoined to TP, the surface word order will match the patterntypical of French: S-V-Adv-O:

(6) [AgrSP O João [TP leu [VP ontem [VP tV o livro]]]]

The same type of analysis is also preferred if one takes into account sentencescontaining sequences of auxiliaries and in which adverbs may surface inseveral positions without radical meaning changes. (7) is an example of sucha case:

(7) (provavelmente) O Paulo (provavelmente) tinha (provavelmente) probably the Paulo probably had probably

lido (provavelmente) o livro (provavelmente) à Maria read probably the book probably to Maria

(, provavelmente).probably.

Assumptions on V-movement and adverbs 7

Adopting the rigid view on adverbs that there is a single position for adverbattachment and trying to derive the multiple possibilities via optional move-ments of all the other constituents is quite implausible, since it creates therather unlikely need of making as many optional movements as there areconstituents and positions for adverbs.

The method of attaching the same adverb to different positions is not new.It has been used in the literature to derive the same effects of Pollock (1989)by Iatridou (1990) and Williams (1994), among others. It has also been usedby Zwart (1993) to derive scrambling in Dutch, without resorting to optionalobject movement.1

Another potential approach to the order S-Adv-V in Portuguese would beto follow Belletti’s (1990) approach to similar facts in Italian.

(8) Gianni probabilmente sbaglierà.Gianni probably fail-FUT-3ps

‘Gianni will probably fail.’

Belletti (1990) argues that the order presented in (8) is to be derived in termsof left-dislocation of the subject, which would explain that the subject andthe verb (in I) would not be adjacent. This analysis is confirmed by herobservation that the order S-Adv-V is only possible with definite subjects(indefinites may not be left-dislocated in Italian) or with indefinites bearing aheavy stress (which may independently be A-bar moved, in contrastive focusconstructions). The contrast between the two types of elements is exemplifiedin (9):

(9) a. Ognuno probabilmente sbaglierà.everyone probably fail(-future)

b. *Nessuno probabilmente sbaglierà.no-one

c. NESSUNO probabilmente sbaglierà.‘No-one will probably make a mistake’

Although, it seems to make the right predictions for Italian, this analysiscannot be extended to Portuguese. The reason is that the counterpart of (9)does not display any asymmetries: both types of subjects may occur in theorder S-Adv-V, independently of focal stress. This is exemplified in (10)below:

8 Introduction

(10) a. Todos provavelmente errarão.

b. Ninguém provavelmente errará.

c. NINGUÉM provavelmente errará.

Another argument for not adopting Belletti’s analysis for Portuguese comesfrom the fact that there is no focus-movement of the Italian type in Portu-guese, as I will show in chapter 4.

An additional argument for the claim that the verb only moves up to Tcomes from the distribution of floating quantifiers. Since Sportiche (1988),floating quantifiers are taken as a diagnostic for A-movement. More specifi-cally, Sportiche argues that floating quantifiers indicate where a subject hasbeen on its way to Spec,IP. For instance, in the sentence in (11) from Portu-guese, the floating quantifier may either move along with the subject toSpec,IP (11a) or be stranded in the base position of the subject in (11b):

(11) a. Todos os miudos foram ao cinema.All the kids went to the cinema‘All the kids went to the movies.’

b. Os miudos foram todos ao cinema.The kids went all to the cinema

Note that the distribution of floating quantifiers is one of Pollock’s (1989)arguments for saying that the verb does not move in English. He notes thefollowing contrast between English and French:

(12) a. The kids all love Mary.b. *The kids love all Mary.

(13) a. Les enfants aiment tous Marie.The kids love all Marie

b. *Les enfants tous aiment Marie.

In (12), the verb stays in situ, and as a consequence, the stranded floatingquantifier precedes it. In (13), the verb moves to I, hence the stranded float-ing quantifier follows it.

Note that if the same argumentation is followed, there is again evidencefor short verb movement of the verb in Portuguese, since the two positionsfor the floating quantifier are possible:

Assumptions on V-movement and adverbs 9

(14) a. Os miudos amam todos a Maria.The kids love all Maria

b. Os miudos todos amam a Maria.

As for adverbs, I will assume that low monosyllabic adverbs mark the left-edge of VP. This assumption is based on the the following arguments pre-sented in Costa (1996, 1998):

– Monosyllabic adverbs do not distribute as freely as other adverbs;

– Monosyllabic adverbs only surface in clause-final position when it ispossible to show that the internal arguments of the verb have moved outof the VP.

Summing up, on the basis of the discussion above, I will be assuming thatthere is short-V-movement in European Portuguese, that is, the verb movesout of VP targeting T and not the highest head of the IP-domain.2 Moreover, itwill be assumed that certain adverbs may be taken as diagnostics for move-ment. In particular, it is argued, following the argumentation developed inCosta (1996, 1998) that low monosyllabic adverbs adjoin to the left of VP.

10 Introduction

2. Preverbal subjects: Spec,IP or left-dislocated?

A well known fact about null subject languages is that several word ordersare allowed. European Portuguese behaves as expected, in displaying almostall possible alternations between subject, verb and direct object. Consideringthe possible orderings between Subject, Verb and Object, it can be observedthat Portuguese exhibits five out of six logically available orders:

(1) SVO?*SOVVSOVOSOSVOVS

(2) a. O Paulo comeu a sopa.Paulo ate the soup

b. ?*O Paulo a sopa comeu.c. Comeu o Paulo a sopa.d. Comeu a sopa o Paulo.e. A sopa, o Paulo comeu.f. A sopa, comeu o Paulo.

In this chapter, I will discuss the status of preverbal subjects, providing teststo identify the position it occupies. This is a relevant task, in light of recentproposals suggesting that preverbal subjects in Null Subject Languages areleft-dislocated (Barbosa 1995; Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou 1998).

The pattern of word-order variation presented in (2) is well known andhas been subject to several analyses in the Generative tradition, among whichAmbar (1992) and Duarte (1987) were the first studies considering the rela-tion between these word orders and discourse. Both authors agree that, inspite of the variation, the unmarked/canonical word order of EuropeanPortuguese is SVO. It is interesting to investigate why it is the case thatSVO is considered unmarked, or putting it in other terms, why an unmarkedcontext does not allow for several word orders to co-occur. Duarte (1987)

presents an analysis of sentence-initial objects, showing that they may beeither topicalized, as in (3a) or clitic-left-dislocated, as in (3b):

(3) a. O bolo, o Pedro comeu.the cake, the Pedro ate.

b. O bolo, o Pedro comeu-o.the cake, Pedro ate itCL-ACC

I will assume her analysis for sentence-initial objects and concentrate onpreverbal subjects, and take the properties associated with left-dislocationof objects in order to test the status of preverbal subjects.

Sentence-initial preverbal subjects, like in (4), are traditionally assumedto occupy the Spec, IP position (cf. Duarte 1987; Ambar 1992; Martins 1994).

(4) O Paulo comeu a sopa.Paulo ate the soup

This assumption has been challenged by several authors (see e.g. Barbosa1995, 2000 for Portuguese, Valmala Elguea 1994, Ordoñez and Treviño1995 for Spanish and Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou 1995, 1998 forGreek). The assumption shared by these authors is that in Null-Subject-Languages preverbal subjects are not in Spec,IP, but rather left dislocated.As noted, for instance in Barbosa (1995), this has theoretical advantages ina framework like the one proposed in Chomsky (1993). According toChomsky, derivations are uniform, and the overt or covert nature of a syn-tactic operation is determined by the specification of formal features associ-ated either with the categories to be moved or with the functional categorywhere they land. Strong features trigger overt movement and weak featurestrigger covert movement only. Within such a framework, optionality inword order of the type observed above is a problem, since it is theoreticallyundesirable to have features that are at the same time weak and strong.Barbosa and the other authors propose that N-features of the subjects inNull Subject languages are uniformly weak. Hence, subjects are onlyexpected to move to Spec,IP in covert syntax or they do not move at all, ifagreement is pronominal and sufficient to check EPP-features. Now, noth-ing prevents them from being topicalized or left-dislocated like other cate-gories are, since overt movement of topics may be formalized by assigningthem some [topic] feature requiring checking.

12 Preverbal subjects: Spec,IP or left-dislocated?

In this section, I will review this analysis and argue that, although some pre-verbal subjects may be left-dislocated, the traditional analysis according towhich preverbal subjects are in Spec,IP makes right predictions for EuropeanPortuguese. This debate regarding the status of the preverbal subject is quitecontroversial, since some data are not very clear. In any case, it is possibleto compare the two analyses, showing that some data must involve subject-left-dislocation, while other data must involve assuming that the subject isin Spec,IP. In Costa (1998), a more radical position was assumed: it wasclaimed that the analysis involving subject-left-dislocation could not be rightfor most cases. However, as it will be shown below, there is no clear reasonnot to assume that both analyses are compatible.3

In order to decide whether the subject is in Spec,IP or not, it is necessaryto find out whether preverbal subjects exhibit A- or A-bar properties. Forthis reason, it will be necessary to compare preverbal subjects with A-barleft-peripheral constituents. Let us then list some of the arguments in favorof assuming that preverbal subject in European Portuguese are in Spec,IP.

A. Multiple preposing

When two complements of the verb are preposed, their relative order is notrigid. This is illustrated in (5):

(5) a. Aos alunos, sobre sintaxe, o Rui falou.to the students, about syntax, Rui talked

b. Sobre sintaxe, aos alunos, o Rui falou.about syntax, to the students, Rui talked

Assuming that the subject is left-dislocated, it is expected that the orderbetween a preposed complement and the subject is not rigid. However, asshown in (6), there is a contrast between SOV and OSV:

(6) a. Esse bolo, o Paulo comeu-o.that cake Paulo ate it

b. ??O Paulo, esse bolo, comeu-o.Paulo, that cake, ate it

Multiple preposing 13

Assuming that the preverbal subject is in Spec,IP, it is expected that it willnot be able to surface before the complement. The lack of ordering restric-tions will only be expected if both sentence-initial elements are adjuncts.

B. Unstressed negative QPs

Another argument in favor of the analysis according to which preverbalsubjects are in Spec,IP comes from the fact that it is possible for a negativeQP to occur in sentence-initial position, non-adjacent to the inflected verb,as in (7):

(7) Ninguém provavelmente leu esse livro.nobody probably read that book

This word order is impossible in Italian. Belletti (1990) shows that a nega-tive QP may only occur before a sentence adverb if it bears heavy stress.According to her analysis, in that case, the negative QP is A-bar moved. Theimpossibility of non-adjacency between unstressed negative QPs and theinflected verb is explained in terms of the impossibility of left-dislocatingnegative QPs.

(8) NESSUNO/*Nessuno probabilmente ha sbagliato.nobody probably failed.

The fact that in European Portuguese there is no contrast like the one inItalian argues for an analysis in which the preverbal negative QP is not nec-essarily left-dislocated. In (8), the negative QP is in Spec,IP, which is notinherently associated with topic properties; it may be unstressed, since it isnot an A-bar position.4

C. No minimality effects

Like in English, in embedded contexts, wh-movement is not obligatorilyfollowed by I-to-C movement. This fact makes it possible to observe adja-cency between the moved wh-phrase and the subject, like in (9a). Theanalysis assuming that the subject is left-dislocated predicts that the wh-constituent may be followed by some other left-dislocated constituent. Thisprediction is however not borne out.


(9) a. Perguntei que livro o Pedro leu.I asked which book Pedro read

b. *Perguntei que livro, à Maria, lhe deram.I asked which book, to Maria, herCL-DAT (they) gave

It is important to note that there seems to be variation concerning the gram-maticality of (9b).5 In any case, since there are speakers for whom the contrastexists, the difference can only be explained by assuming a different statusfor the subject and for the left-dislocated constituents. A straightforwardway of explaining this contrast is to assume that wh-movement to the left ofa left-dislocated constituent yields a problem of minimality. If the subject isin Spec,IP, it is expected that it will not create any problem regarding mini-mality, since it occupies an A-position.

D. Reconstruction

As it is well-known, A-bar movement obligatorily reconstructs, unlike A-movement. If it is assumed that the preverbal subject is in Spec,IP, it is ex-pected that there is no reconstruction of the subject, while a left-dislocatedcomplement may reconstruct. In fact, the preverbal subject in (10a) cannotreconstruct, scoping obligatorily over the agent. In (10b), the left-dislocatedcomplement may reconstruct, and the sentence is ambiguous:

(10) a. Três livros foram lidos por dois estudantes. S>Ag; *Ag>Sthree books were read by two students

b. Três livros, dois estudantes leram-nos. S>O; O>Sthree books two students read them

The fact that there is no ambiguity in (10a) and the contrast between the twocases seems to indicate that the preverbal subject and the preverbal objectoccupy different positions.6

E. Unmarkedness of SVO

As it will be discussed later in this chapter, unmarkedness may be detectedby looking at answers to the question what happened?. This context is

Reconstruction 15

unmarked from the point of view of discourse, since all elements will yieldnew information. In EP, the answer to this question is SVO:

(11) A: O que é que aconteceu?what happened

B: a. O Pedro partiu o braço.Pedro broke the arm

b. #Partiu o Pedro o braço.broke Pedro the arm

c. #O braço, o Pedro partiu-o.the arm, Pedro broke it

The fact that SVO emerges in this context is problematic for the left-disloca-tion analysis for two reasons. First, it is possible to observe that left-disloca-tion is illegitimate in this context (11c), which makes it difficult to explainwhy the subject can be left-dislocated if other elements cannot. Second,even if one would assume that the subject could be left-dislocated, it wouldbe necessary to explain why it cannot stay in its base position (Spec, VP).Note that the impossibility of (11b) is not due to the exhaustive nature of thesubject in inversion constructions (Costa 2000), since the behavior is thesame in mono-argumental intransitive contexts:7

(11) O que é que aconteceu?what happened

a. O João espirrou.João sneezed

b. #Espirrou o João.sneezed João

a. O João viajou.João travelled

b. #Viajou o João.travelled João

Once again, if the only A-position for the subject were Spec, VP, inversionshould be found in this context.


F. Raising constructions and definiteness

In Barbosa (2000), cases of preverbal subjects are presented that can only beanalyzed as instances of left-dislocation. For instances, sentences like (12)must involve subject left-dislocation, and not movement to Spec,IP, other-wise they would be instances of super-raising:

(12) a. O homem parece que viu um monstro.the man seems that saw a monster

b. O João parece que está parvo.João seems that is fool

Her analysis is corroborated by the fact that there is a definiteness effect inthis type of construction. If the preverbal subject is indefinite, the left-dislo-cation is impossible:

(13) a. *Umas meninas parece que estão doentes.some girls seems that are sick

b. *Baleias parece que comem peixe.whales seems that eat fish

This definiteness effect is expected, since left-dislocation typically affectsdefinite XPs. Now, the comparison with constructions that are not obligatorilyanalyzed as instances of left-dislocation becomes crucial at this point. TheSVO word orders in (14) do not exhibit any definiteness effect:8

(14) a. O homem foi assassinado.the man was murdered

a’. Um homem foi assassinado.a man was murdered

b. As meninas estão doentes.the girls are sick

b’. Umas meninas estão doentes.some girls are sick

c. As baleias comem peixe.the whales eat fish

c’. Baleias comem peixe.whales eat fish

Raising constructions and definiteness 17

The assumption that the preverbal subjects in (14) are in Spec,IP derives thelack of definiteness effects associated with left-dislocation.

G. Pronominal doubling contextually limited (Costa 2000)

As shown in Barbosa (1995), in some null subject romance languages, pre-verbal DP subjects are obligatorily doubled by a pronoun, which stronglyargues in favor of her analysis. In EP, doubling is possible, for instance inanswer to a multiple wh-question (Costa 2002a):

(15) A: Quem leu o quê?who read what

B: a. O João, ele leu o livro.João he read the book

b. O João leu o livro.João read the book

The possibility of pronominal doubling in EP suggests that Barbosa’s analysisis right for this language as well. There are, however, contexts in which dou-bling the subject is ungrammatical. For instances, if the whole sentence isfocused, as in (16), doubling is marginal at best:


B: a. O João leu o livro.João read the book

b. ??*O João, ele leu o livro.João he read the book

Barbosa’s analysis, assuming that the preverbal subject is always left-dislo-cated, predicts that doubling by a pronoun will always be possible, like inother Romance null subject languages, which is not the case. Assumingthat, in a context like the one given in (16), the subject is in Spec,IP derivesthe ungrammaticality of pronominal doubling in this context.


H. Subject positions in C-less if-clauses (Costa and Galves 2002)

Complementizer-less if-clauses force I-to-C movement in EP, like in English.As illustrated in (17), in these sentences the subject appears right after theinflected verb. The sentence initial position is ungrammatical:9

(17) a. Tivesse o João ido ao Brasil...had João gone to Brazil

b. *O João tivesse ido ao Brasil...John had gone to Brazil…

If the subject is in Spec,IP, the word order in (17a) is predicted, since I-to-Cmovement will make the verb cross the subject position. If the subject wereright-dislocated, one would expect to find the word order in (17b), since theleft-dislocated subject would be adjoined to the left of CP.10

I. Preverbal and postverbal pronominal doubling

Returning to the cases in which the preverbal subject can be doubled by apronoun, it is possible to observe that the pronoun may be preverbal orpostverbal:

(18) a. O João, leu ele o livro.João, read he the book

b. O João, ele leu o livro.João he read the book

The postverbal position of the pronoun is not problematic for the analysisaccording to which the subject is left-dislocated. (18b) is problematic, since itmust be analyzed as a case of left-dislocation of both the DP and the pronoun.Note that there is nothing wrong in assuming that a DP and a co-referringpronoun are left-dislocated. Such a case is illustrated in (19), in which theDP complement is doubled by the strong pronoun a ele. The strong pronounitself is left-dislocated and doubled by a clitic:

(19) O João, a ele, vi-o no cinema.João, to him, I saw himCL-ACC in the movie theater

Subject positions in C-less if-clauses 19

Now, if the clitic may cooccur with multiple fronting, as in (19), it is expectedthat the postverbal pronoun, corresponding to the clitic in (19), may co-occurwith the preverbal DP subject and the preverbal pronoun. This prediction isnot borne out:

(20) O João, ele leu (*ele) o livro.João he read he the book

Assuming that the preverbal pronoun is in Spec,IP, it is expected that it willnot be possible to find another subject in a lower position, since the subjectin Spec,IP was generated in Spec, VP.

In Costa (2003) and Costa and Duarte (2003), some additional evidenceagainst the idea that null subject languages are languages that check EPP bymeans of pronominal Agr was presented.

First, there are languages which are only semi-pro-drop. This is the case ofBrazilian Portuguese (Coelho, Costa, Figueiredo Silva and Menuzzi 2001)and Cape verdean creole (Pratas 2002). In these two languages, referentialnull subjects are ungrammatical, but expletive pro, available with weatherverbs and unaccusative inversions, is available. This fact, predicted underRizzi’s (1982) licensing conditions for pro, is illustrated in the examplesbelow:

(21) a. Chegou o Pedro. BParrived Pedro

b. *Viajou o Pedro. BPtraveled Pedro

c. *pro viajou. BPtraveled

(22) Está chovendo. BPis raining

(23) a. Txiga tres pesoa. CVCarrived three persons

b. *Papia tres pesoa. CVCtalk three persons

c. *pro papia CVCtalks


(24) Txobi. CVCrains

Inversion is possible in BP and CVC, in contexts in which Spec,IP is occu-pied by expletive pro. These languages do not allow referential pro. Crucially,if the availability of null subjects were a consequence of the availability of apronominal Agr responsible for EPP checking, there should be no mixedsystems.

The existence of mixed systems suggests that what is at stake is an inter-action between different constraints, as suggested by Rizzi (1982) and Coelhoet alii (2001), among others.11 The relevant constraints are: structural (i.e. isSpec,IP projected?), which has consequences for checking of EPP and Case-features; lexical (i.e. does Spec,IP have to be lexically filled?), which is anEPP matter; paradigmatic (i.e. does pro exist in the pronominal system?). Alanguage in which Spec,IP is not projected will be a language with both ref-erential and expletive null subjects. A language in which Spec,IP is projected,but it does not need to be lexically filled will be a language with both types ofnull subjects or with expletive null subjects only, depending on the avail-ability of pro.

Another domain providing counter-evidence for the claim that preverbalsubjects are left-dislocated is language acquisition. If preverbal subjects areleft-dislocated in null subject languages, it is expected that VSO is unmarked,and that children will only produce SV sentences by the time they master left-dislocation (Adragão and Costa 2003). A study of the acquisition of subjectsin a child in his second year of life (Adragão 2001) reveals that inversion ishighly marked and rare in the child’s early productions:

(25) % of SV/VS utterances in the child’s productions:

SV – 93VS – 7 (out of 1060 sentences)

From these, most VS structures corresponds to passives, unaccusatives (79%)and predicative structures, which are contexts in which inversion is unmarkedin the target adult system as well. It is importante to note that, in her study,Adragão was looking for contexts in which the subject should be inverted inthe adult counterpart. Notice, as well, that at this stage, there are very few OVsentences, and that there is no evidence for strategies of clitic left-dislocation,since the acquisition of clitics is quite late in EP (cf. Duarte and Matos 2000).These data provide additional evidence for the unmarked status of the pre-

Preverbal and postverbal pronominal doubling 21

verbal position for subjects. The correlation between inversion and unac-cusativity make it impossible to claim that children do not know whetherSpec,IP is projected.

Finally, the existence of inflected gerunds in Dialectal European Portu-guese, and their behavior in identifying the reference of null subjects (Ribeiro2002) casts some doubt on the pronominal status of Agr in this language. Theproblem identified by Ribeiro is that there is no great difference between dia-lectal and standard EP, as far as the licensing of null subjects is concerned.12

Independently of the presence of Agr, a null subject in a gerund clause mustbe controlled by the subject of the matrix clause, as shown in (26):

(26) Dialectal EP: Standard EP:

a. Estandes eci cansado, tui podes ir. a. Estando eci cansado, tui podes ir.being-2sg tired, you may go being tired, you may go.

b. Estandes tu cansado, eu posso ir. b. Estando tu cansado, eu posso ir.being-2sg you tired, I may go being you tired, I may go

c. *Estandes eci cansado, euj posso ir. c. *Estando eci cansado, euj posso ir.being-2sg tired, I may go being tired, I may go

The ungrammaticality of (26c), and the lack of difference between the twodialects casts some doubt on the idea that Agr is pronominal in EuropeanPortuguese.

From the results of the tests listed above, I conclude that the traditionalanalysis assuming that preverbal subjects in EP are in Spec,IP (cf. Ambar1992, Duarte 1992, among others) cannot be dispensed with.

It is important to note that the results of the application of the tests aboveto European Portuguese do not imply that the results may be extended toother Null Subject Languages. Actually, in Costa (1998), I assumed that thedescriptions and analyses of Greek by Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou(1998) and Spanish by Ordoñez and Treviño (1995) are correct, and accountedfor the difference between these languages and Portuguese. As implicit inthe discussion above, stating that subjects may be in Spec,IP does not meanthat they are in Spec,IP in all constructions. As shown in Barbosa (2000),some constructions must be analyzed as instances of left-dislocation of thesubject (see for instances the cases of apparent super-raising). In fact, sinceall constituents may be left-dislocated, subjects do not behave differently: inchapter 4, I will show that they can be left-dislocated in a specific context.


3. Postverbal subjects: syntax and discourse – VSO and VOS orders

In this chapter, the properties of postverbal subjects will be studied. It will beargued that VS word orders may arise not only in contexts of I-to-C move-ment (Ambar 1992), but also if the subject is stranded in its base position,Spec, VP. Two contexts for post-verbal subjects will be considered: VSOand VOS, both in declarative contexts. For both contexts, the conclusionwill be that the subject is in Spec, VP.

The argumentation will be the following: first, I will show that the post-verbal position of subjects is not necessarily a consequence of V-movementacross the subject from I° to another functional projection. This conclusionwill be based on similarities between root and embedded contexts. Theanalysis will also be based on assumptions regarding the reliability ofadverb positioning as a diagnosis for tracing the left-edge of VP.

3.1. Post-verbal subjects in VSO context

In any theory admitting the existence of functional projections, which arepotential landing sites for V, and accepting the VP-Internal Subject Hy-pothesis (Koopman and Sportiche 1991), there are at least three ways ofderiving postverbal subjects in VSO order. Such mechanisms are illustratedin (1), (2) and (3):

(1) [FP Vi [IP Subjectk [I’ ti [VP tk ti Object]]]]

(2) [IP Vi [VP Subject [V’ ti Object]]]

(3) [IP Vi [XP Subjectk [VP tk ti Object]]]

(1) illustrates an analysis of VSO, according to which this word order arisesin the following way: both Subject and Verb move out of VP; the subjectstops in Spec,IP, but the verb is further moved to the head position of afunctional projection above IP.13

In (2), an alternative is presented: the verb moves up to I° and stops there.The subject does not precede it, because it has never been moved from itsbase-position Spec, VP.

Finally, (3) illustrates another type of analysis, according to which the sub-ject undergoes short-movement out of VP, in the sense that it does not moveall the way up to its ‘normal’ landing site, Spec,IP. The verb undergoesmovement to I°.

It is important to note that these three types of analyses do not excludeeach other. In fact, it may be seen that they are all independently instantiatedin different types of languages. For instance, (1) is the type of analysis arguedfor Dutch and German Verb-second phenomenon and for English Subject-Aux inversion in questions (cf. 4); (2) has been argued by Ouhalla (1991) tobe the correct analysis for Celtic VSO (5); (3) has been argued for IcelandicTransitive Expletive Constructions by Bobaljik and Jonas (1996):

(4) a. Dutch V2:

Gisteren heeft Jan het boek gelezen.Yesterday has Jan the book read

b. English Subject-Auxiliary Inversion:Who had Mary seen?

(5) Celtic VSO:

Darnellod y plentyn y lyffr.Read the child the book

(6) Icelandic Transitive Expletive Constructions:

fia› hafa margir jólasveinar bor›a› bú›ingThere have many Santa Clauses eaten puding

For European Portuguese, all three types of analyses have been proposed:Ambar (1992) has argued that post-verbal subjects in this language are thereflex of movement of I-to-C, along the lines of (1); Martins (1994) andDuarte (1997) have proposed that under certain circumstances subjects maybe stranded in the Specifier of a functional projection below IP but higherthan VP, following the lines of (3); in this chapter, as in Costa (1997, 1998),I argue for an analysis along the lines of (2).

The fact that the three types of analyses exist independently of each otherdoes not mean that they exclude each other. For instance, it is possible to

24 Postverbal subjects: syntax and discourse – VSO and VOS orders

assume that V moves to C in questions, as proposed in Ambar (1992), andthat the subject stays in Spec, VP. That is, we may have two analyses for thesentence in (7):

(7) Quem viu o João?Who saw João‘Who did João see?’

One analysis would assume that the subject is in Spec,IP and the verb hasraised up to C, as in (8a); another analysis would claim that the subject is inSpec, VP, as in (8b):

(8) a. [CP Quem [C’ viu [IP o João [I’ tV ….

b. [CP Quem [C’ viu [IP tV [VP o João….

That the two analyses are necessary is confirmed by the fact that there aretwo adverb positions, one before the subject and one after it, which may beexplained by assuming that the adverb is adjoined to VP, and adopting theexplanation in (9):

(9) a. Quem viu o João ontem?yesterday

a’. [CP Quem [C’ viu [IP o João [I’ tV [VP ontem….

b. Quem viu ontem o João?b’. [CP Quem [C’ viu [IP tV [VP ontem [VP o João….

Bearing this idea in mind, I will now show that for simple declarative affir-mative sentences, an analysis claiming that post-verbal subjects are in Spec,VP is more attractive.

There are four main arguments for not deriving VS order in declarativesentences necessarily in terms of an analysis involving I-to-C movement.The arguments are listed in a) through c):

a) VS is possible in embedded sentences:

If postverbal subjects were only derived by V-movement to C, they should notappear in embedded contexts, since C is occupied by the complementizer.This prediction is not borne out by the data:14

Post-verbal subjects in VSO context 25

(10) O Paulo disse que comeu a Maria a sopa.‘Paulo said that ate Mary the soup’

Note that this is not problematic for an analysis in which the subject isstranded in the Specifier of a functional projection higher than VP and lowerthan IP. Such an analysis will be considered below, when this word order isconfronted with possible readings of adverbs.

b) Sequences auxiliary-participle(s):

The second problem for the type of analysis defending that VS arises neces-sarily by virtue of movement of the verb to a functional projection abovethe landing site of the subject is the fact that in more complex verbal con-structions (involving an auxiliary verb and one or more non-finite forms ofthe verb), the subject may follow all of them:

(11) a. Tinha comido o Paulo maçãs.‘had eaten Paulo apples’

b. Tem estado a comer o Paulo maçãs.‘has been eating Paulo apples’

If inversion could only be derived by moving the verb across the subject tothe functional projection above it, we would expect to find the subjectobligatorily following the auxiliary verb, in a construction similar to Rizzi’s(1982) Aux-to-Comp. In order to assume that the subject in (31a) is inSpec,IP, one has to postulate at least two heads above IP. If more auxiliariesare present, more heads have to be postulated, as (11b) shows.

c) The distribution of adverbs:

The distribution of adverbs also supports the idea that postverbal subjectsdo not reflect V-movement to a position higher than IP. In Costa (1998), Ihave proposed that a proper characterization of the distribution of adverbswith a subject-oriented reading requires that these adverbs are adjoined toTP, and that this reading is only triggered whenever the subject moves up toSpec,IP (=Spec,AgrSP). Assuming these results, there is a further diagnosticfor identifying the position of the subject: if postverbal subjects were in


Spec,IP, adverbs with a subject-oriented reading should be expected toadjoin to TP, thus intervening in between the subject and the object. Thisprediction is incorrect:

(12) *Comeu o Paulo inteligentemente maçãs.‘ate Paulo cleverly apples’

(12) is grammatical, but only with a manner reading for the adverb. Thestructure allowing (12) would be the one in (13):

(13) [CP Comeu [IP o Paulo [I’ tV [TP inteligentemente [TP …[ VP tSubj tV maçãs]]]]]]

On the basis of these arguments, I reject an analysis of inversion in declara-tive sentences that is solely based on Verb movement across the subject inSpec,IP. I stress nevertheless that such an analysis is still necessary e.g. forinterrogative sentences, as shown in Ambar (1992 and subsequent work).

Having pointed out some problems for an analysis of inversion solely interms of verb movement across a subject moved to Spec,IP, it is my tasknow to develop the alternative analysis for VS orders. In this section I willargue that VSO orders may be analyzed as the result of a representation inwhich subjects stay in their base-position, Spec, VP, and do not move toSpec,IP. Evidence for this analysis will come from the distribution ofadverbs.

In Costa (1996, 1998), I argued that the position of monosyllabic adverbsis a good test for determining the left edge of VP. Although I emphasizedthat the conclusions reached are valid for English, but not necessarily forother languages, it seems that similar adverbs may be used as diagnostic forthe left-edge of VP in Portuguese as well.

Let us recall the two main properties of these adverbs:

a) First, they do not display the properties associated with right-adjunction,which may be seen in the order PP-Adv, which, without any special intona-tional mark on the adverb is ill-formed both in Portuguese and in English:

(14) a. John looked hard at some pictures.

b. *John looked at some pictures hard.


(15) a. O Paulo olhou bem para alguns daqueles quadros.Paulo looked well at some of those pictures

b. *O Paulo olhou para alguns daqueles quadros bem.

b) Secondly, monosyllabic adverbs have a more restricted distribution thanother types of adverbs:

(16) a. John (carefully) has (carefully) looked (carefully) at some pictures (carefully)

b. John (*well) has (*well) looked (well) at some pictures (*well).

(17) a. O Paulo (cuidadosamente) tinha (cuidadosamente) olhado (cuidadosamente) para aqueles quadros (cuidadosamente).

b. O Paulo (*bem) tinha (*bem) olhado (bem) para aqueles quadros (*bem).

Given the similarities between English and Portuguese, I will consider themonosyllabic adverb as a reliable test for marking the left-edge of VP alsoin Portuguese.

Let us then consider the possible positions for the monosyllabic adverbbem ‘well’ in a VSO sentence:

(18) a. *Bem comeu o Paulo maçãs,‘well ate Paulo apples’

b. ?*Comeu o Paulo bem maçãs,

c. *Comeu o Paulo maçãs bem.

d. Comeu bem o Paulo maçãs,

Example (18) shows that the only position for the adverb to surface in aVSO sentence is in between the verb and the subject. All other positions areexcluded.15 If the position of these adverbs is the same in English andPortuguese, as the similarity of the data makes one suspect, it is legitimateto conclude that in the VSO word order, the subject is in Spec, VP.

Note that it is not possible to adopt an analysis of this word order, inwhich the subject would move out of the VP to some functional projectionabove it but lower than AgrSP, as has been argued for Icelandic Transitive


Expletive Constructions by Bobalijk and Jonas (1996), and for Portugueseby Duarte (1997) and Martins (1994). The problem with such an analysis isthe fact that the adverbs considered here obligatorily follow the participialform in a sequence consisting of the inflected auxiliary followed by the par-ticipial form. This is exemplified in (19):

(19) a. O Paulo tinha lido bem alguns livros.Paulo had read well some books

b. *O Paulo tinha bem lido alguns livros.

The contrast in (19) not only shows that it is not possible to extend Bobaljikand Jonas’ (1996) analysis to Portuguese, but it also provides further evidencefor the claim put forward here regarding the distribution of monosyllabicadverbs. Note that the facts in (19) imply that the participial form moves outof the VP to some functional head. This is possible and confirmed by thedistribution of the adverb itself. It should however be noted that the parti-cipial form could remain in VP, as it does in French (M.T. Vinet, personalcommunication):

(20) a. Jean avait bien lu les livres.Jean had well read the books

b. *Jean avait lu bien les livres.

The fact that (20b) is ungrammatical in French excludes an analysis of (19) interms of adjunction of the adverb to some lower level within VP. Assumingthat monosyllabic adverbs are adjoined to VP in the two languages, we mayexplain the contrast between the order adverb-participle in French andPortuguese with the usual tools deriving differences in head movement: parti-ciples obligatorily move out of VP in Portuguese, while they never do so inFrench.

I thus conclude that the distribution of adverbs seem to support the ideathat postverbal subjects are in Spec, VP. Further evidence for this claimcomes from the study of VOS orders.


3.2. Postverbal subjects in VOS contexts

In the preceding section, I have investigated the position of postverbal sub-jects in VSO contexts. In this section, I will look at another possible positionfor post-verbal subjects, the one in which they follow the object. I will arguefor an analysis of this word order similar to that of VSO. In VOS, subjectswill be claimed to be in Spec, VP, but, differently from VSO, the object hasscrambled out of the VP, crossing the subject. The argumentation in defenseof the movement of the object will be presented in the second half of thischapter (cf. Section 3.3). I will therefore assume the results of that sectionin my discussion of the subject position in VOS, and refer the reader to sec-tion 3 for the evidence supporting object movement in European Portuguese.

The VOS context is exemplified in (21):

(21) Comeu a sopa o Paulo.Ate the soup Paulo.

In the traditional analysis for this word order, subjects are claimed to be right-dislocated (see e.g. Rizzi 1982 for Italian). I do not think that the subject-right-dislocation analysis is to be dispensed with, but would neverthelesslike to clarify the data a little bit. In this section, I will be concerned withsentence-final subjects that are not right-dislocated. How can the two typesof subjects be differentiated? I would like to show that right-dislocated sub-jects and sentence-final base-generated subjects distribute differently.

The first distinguishing factor is intonation: while right-dislocated subjectsare preceded by a pause, sentence-final subjects are not:

(22) a. Comeu a sopa # o Paulo.Ate the soup Paulo

b. Comeu a sopa o Paulo.

This observation may seem at first sight rather awkward: it could be that, inboth cases, subject right-dislocation is involved, the pause being optionallypossible. As a result, different intonations would not be associated with dif-ferent syntactic structures. However, if the paradigm in (23) is taken intoconsideration, it is possible to see that, when a pronoun is inserted inSpec,IP, the pause is obligatory:


(23) a. Ele comeu a sopa # o Paulo.‘he ate the soup Paulo’

b. *Ele comeu a sopa o Paulo.

(24) shows that the pronoun is ungrammatical in a VSO context, which can-not be treated as a case of subject right-dislocation:

(24) (*Ele ) comeu o Paulo a sopa.‘he ate Paulo the soup’

One way to interpret these facts is to assume with Kayne (1994) andZubizarreta (1998) that the right-dislocated subjects are clause-external(tags in Zubizarreta 1998, the result of clause reduction for Kayne 1994).Further evidence for this claim comes from the interaction between ques-tion tags and subjects. Den Dikken (1995) shows that shifted heavy NPs,traditionally analyzed as right dislocated, follow question tags:

(25) They have found, haven’t they?, the treasure buried on that island 100years ago.

The same is true in EP: right-dislocated subjects follow question tags whilesubjects in Spec, VP precede it. This is shown by the interaction betweenthese orderings and pronoun insertion:

(26) a. Comeu a sopa o Paulo, não comeu?‘ate the soup Paulo not ate’

b. *Ele comeu a sopa o Paulo, não comeu?he

c. Comeu a sopa, não comeu?, o Paulo

d. Ele comeu a sopa, não comeu?, o Paulo.

The only possibility to obtain the order subject-tag is either to leave out thepronoun, or to introduce a pause before the subject. This just shows that thetwo sentence adjuncts, tag and right-dislocated subject are interchangeable:

(27) (ele) comeu a sopa # o Paulo # não comeu?

Post-verbal subjects in VOS contexts 31

In the remainder of this section, I will ignore right-dislocated subjects, sincethey appear to be extra-sentential. I will concentrate on the ones I claim to bein Spec, VP, that is postverbal subjects not involving an intonational breakafter the object.

Having established this difference, let us now look at the tests that enableus to identify the position of the subjects in VOS sentences.

a) The distribution of adverbs:

Applying the same test as for VSO, it is now possible to check the paradigmfor the several potential positions for the monosyllabic adverb bem ‘well’ inVOS contexts. Keeping in mind that cases of right-dislocation are to beignored and can be tested by inserting a nominative pronoun, the results arethe following:

(28) a. Comeu bem a sopa o Paulo‘ate well the soup Paulo’

b. *Comeu a sopa o Paulo bem.

c. Comeu a sopa bem o Paulo.

The results in (28) seem to indicate that, independently of what happens tothe object, the subject is VP -internal, surfacing obligatorily to the right ofthe adverb. In section 3, I will return to these examples and explain why thetwo word orders between the object and the adverb are possible.

b) Binding effects.

Binding effects seem to support the analysis of VOS I am presenting here.As it is well know, A-movement feeds binding (cf. 29), while A-bar move-ment does not (cf. 30).

(29) a. *It seems to each other that the boys are tired.

b. The boys seem to each other to be tired.

(30) a. *Paul introduced each other to Mary and Paul.

b. *Who did Paul introduce to each other?


The same effects may be visible in Portuguese: in (31), the QP only bindsthe possessive in the passive construction (31b), and not when it is wh-extracted (cf. the Weak Cross -over effects in 31c):

(31) a. *O seui realizador viu todos os filmesi.‘their director saw all the movies’

b. Todos os filmesi foram vistos pelo seu realizadori.‘all the movies were seen by their director’

c. *Que filmesi viu o seu realizadori?‘which movies saw their director’

Now consider the behavior of subjects and objects in a VSO order: if theobject is a QP and the subject contains a possessive anaphor, binding isimpossible. If object scrambling were A-movement binding would be accept-able, on a par with (31b). This is not the case, as (32b) illustrates:

(32) a. *Viu o seui realizador todos os filmesi.‘saw their director all the movies’

b. *Viu todos os filmesi o seui realizador.‘saw all the movies their director’

The impossibility of binding becomes even clearer in cases like (33), whichare only acceptable if interpreted as involving VSO order:

(33) a. *Viu [Obj o Pauloi ] [Subj o seui irmão].‘saw Paulo his brother’

b. Viu [Subj o Pauloi ] [Obj o seui irmão].

One could argue that these effects do not constitute conclusive evidence infavor of the analysis of VOS order I am advocating, since binding would beimpossible anyway if the subject were moved rightwards and adjoined to aposition higher than the object, making it impossible for the object to c-command it. However, the following examples prove that this is not true: inthe cases which were identified as instances of right-dislocation, i.e. thosecases in which a tag may intervene between the object and the subject, bind-ing is possible:16

Post-verbal subjects in VOS contexts 33

(24) a. Viu [Obj o Pauloi ], não viu?, [Subj o seui irmão].‘saw Paulo, not saw, poss brother’

b. Viu [obj todos os filmesi], não viu?, [Subj o seui realizador].‘saw all the movies, not saw, poss director’

c) The differences between definites and indefinites:

If VOS contexts indeed involve subjects in Spec, VP, there should not beany difference between definites and indefinites, since both types of sub-jects occur in VSO sentences, as illustrated in (25):

(25) a. Comeu o Pedro a sopa.ate Pedro the soup

b. Comeu um homem a sopa.ate a man the soup

In fact, postverbal subjects in VOS may be either definite or indefinite:

(26) a. Comeu a sopa o Paulo.‘ate the soup Paulo’

b. Comeu a sopa um homem.‘ate the soup a man’

The fact that definiteness does not play any role also confirms that VOSword order is not necessarily derived in terms of right-dislocation of the sub-ject, since in the true cases of subject-right-dislocation, indefinite subjectsare marginal, as illustrated in (27), in which the question tag helps to differ-entiate the two types of constructions:

(27) a. Comeu a sopa, não comeu?, o Paulo.Ate the soup, not ate?, Paulo

b. *Comeu a sopa, não comeu?, um homem qualquer.Ate the soup, not ate?, some man

The definiteness effect in (27) is expected, since right-dislocation may beassociated with pronominal doubling, as shown above. Since only definiteDPs can be doubled, right-dislocated subjects behave as expected.


From the tests above, I conclude that in VOS context, subjects occupy theSpec,VP position. The difference between VSO and VOS will be derived interms of object scrambling in the latter, in accordance with the evidence tobe presented in section 3. A comparison between the scrambling analysisand an analysis involving remnant-IP movement, along the lines of Kayne(1998) will provide further evidence in favor of the claim that subjects inVOS are in Spec, VP.

At this point, it is possible to tell which position the subject occupies ineach of the attested word orders.

The conclusions reached so far are the following:

1. Preverbal subjects occupy the Spec,IP position; like all other arguments,it can be left-dislocated in some contexts.

2. Postverbal subjects in VSO context may be in Spec, VP

3. Postverbal subjects in VOS without intonation break between the objectand the subject are in Spec, VP

In the next section, the position of objects in VOS sentences, which is cru-cial for the analysis of this word order, will be discussed.

3.3. Objects in VOS: Scrambling in European Portuguese

In the preceding section, I have assumed without providing arguments thatPortuguese VOS orders involve object scrambling across the subject. In thissection, I will motivate that assumption, arguing that it is possible to identifysimilarities between scrambling in European Portuguese and the well-knownscrambling configurations in Dutch and German. In order to achieve thisgoal, I will first show some properties of scrambling in Dutch and German.This will establish the grounds for a comparison between Portuguese andDutch/German, and determine how to trace scrambling in a VO language.As mentioned in the previous section, if the scrambling analysis is on theright track, there will be further evidence in favor of the claim that the sub-ject may be stranded in Spec, VP in EP. In order to strengthen this claim, thescrambling analysis will be compared with an analysis in terms of remnantIP-movement, following proposals of Kayne (1998). Tests will be providedfor comparing the two analyses. I will further review three of the theories ofscrambling: case-driven movement (Zwart 1993 among others), semanti-

Objects in VOS: Scrambling in European Portuguese 35

cally-driven movement (Diesing and Jelinek 1995) and prosodically-drivenmovement (Reinhart 1995, Zubizarreta 1998), showing that the Portuguesedata provide evidence in favor of the latter.

The results of this section will challenge the view advocated in Webelhuth(1989) and Neeleman and Reinhart (1999) that scrambling is a property ofOV languages only. Moreover, showing that there is scrambling in Portu-guese will add one more language to the group of languages in which thisphenomenon is visible, which makes it possible to broaden the empiricalcoverage of the very debated issue of what the exact nature of scrambling is.

Scrambling was first discussed by Ross (1967) to refer to the syntacticprocess that permits breaking the adjacency complement-verb by insertionof an adjunct. The scrambled variant of (38a) is (38b):

(38) a. Adverb Object Verb No scramblingb. Object Adverb Verb Scrambling

In this section I will illustrate some of the properties of scrambling in Germanand Dutch, just to establish a basis for comparison between these languagesand European Portuguese. I will sometimes use the term movement forscrambling, but this does not yet mean that I am adopting a specific theoryof scrambling. At this stage, I will remain neutral with respect to the correctanalysis of scrambling (movement or base-generation of the complement inthe scrambled position). The properties that will be considered are the fol-lowing:

a) Scrambling moves NPs and PPs17:

(39) Dutch:a. dat Jan in Amsterdam zijn vriendin ontmoet.

that Jan in Amsterdam his girlfriend meets

b. dat Jan zijn vriendin in Amsterdam ontmoet.that Jan his girlfriend in A’dam meets

(40) a. dat Jan waak op zijn vriend wacht.that Jan often for his friend waits

b. dat Jan op zijn vriend waak wacht.that Jan for his friend often waits


b) Differently from the categories in (39) and (40), predicative APs andsome Small Clauses cannot be moved, as (41) and (42) show:

(41) *dat Jan Marie aardig altijd vindt.that Jan Marie always nice finds

(42) *dat Jan ziek altijd is.that Jan sick always is

c) Another property of scrambling noted by Bennis and Hoekstra (1984) isthat it licenses parasitic gaps:

(43) a. Jan heeft die boeken zonder te lezen weggelegd.Jan has these books without read put away

b. *Jan heeft zonder te lezen die boeken weggelegd.Jan has without read these books put away

With respect to this property, it is important to note that some authors do notconsider these facts conclusive for determining the type of movement in-volved in scrambling (see e.g. de Hoop 1992, Zwart 1993, Neeleman 1994,among others), either because there are constructions in which subjects ofpassives license parasitic gaps (cf. de Hoop 1992), or because parasitic gapsare marginal in Dutch, or because there are cases in which parasitic gapsappear to be licensed by a constituent in an A-position (other than subjectsof passives) (cf. (44) from Webelhuth 1989). The problem with (44), whichexemplifies what came to be known as Webelhuth’s paradox, is that the QPjeden/everyone is in a position where it both licenses the parasitic gap andA-binds a pronoun (contained in the same clause that contains the parasiticgap). Note that the fact that the parasitic gap and the pronoun are in thesame clause is really paradoxical, and cannot be solved by means of two-stepmovement, as proposed in Vanden Wyngaerd (1989) and Mahajan (1990).

(44) German (Webelhuth’ paradox):

weil Maria jedeni ohne pg anzuschauen seinem Nachbarn ti

because Maria everyone without to-look-at his neighbor

vorgestellt hatintroduced has

‘because Maria introduced everyone to his neighbor without lookingat him’


Here, I will take the opposite approach to this problem, ignoring the A-bind-ing facts. For a solution for this problem, I refer the reader to Lee andSantorini (1994). One of the reasons for this option is that there is not a cleardescription of what the WCO and WCO repair facts are, and, moreover, pureA-positions (meaning absolute subjects and not subjects derived form objectpositions never license parasitic gaps as (65) illustrates (see also Diesing1995, Vikner 1994 and Bobaljik 1995 for similar ideas).

(45) *Jan heeft zonder pg te zien het boek gelezen.Jan has without to see the book read

I emphasize, though, that this is a purely methodological option, due to theunclarity of binding as a diagnostic. It is very likely that whenever there is aclear description of the facts, the methodology will have to be reviewed.

d) Though this property is not available in Dutch, but only acceptable inGerman, it has been observed that scrambling may move an object across asubject:

(46) German:weil den Patienten der Arzt besucht hat.because the patient-ACC the doctor-NOM visited has‘because the doctor visited the patient’

This difference between German and Dutch may be explained assumingwith Diesing (1992) that subjects may stay in Spec, VP in German. If thisoption is not available for Dutch, the contrast between the two languagesfollows. It is not a consequence of the availability of a different type ofscrambling in German, but rather an effect of the availability of Spec, VP asa legitimate position for the subject only in German.

e) Another well-known property of Dutch and German scrambling are thesemantic/pragmatic requirements of this operation (the scrambled con-stituent has to be specific or non-novel, cf. de Hoop 1992; Diesing 1995;among others).


Having described some of the properties of Dutch and German scrambling,let me now move to a description of the Portuguese data and check out thesimilarities with Germanic scrambling.

The problem with identifying scrambling in Portuguese is that this lan-guage has V-to-I movement, which makes it difficult to identify the positionof the object. Since the verb is not in VP anymore, the position of the objectis ambiguous between its base position or the scrambled position. That is,an SVO sentence may be analyzed as either (47a) without scrambling, (47b)with the object adjoined to VP, or (47c) with the object moved toSpec,AgrOP:

(47) a. [IP S [I’ V [VP tS tV O]]]

b. [IP S [I’ V [VP O [VP tS tV tO]]]]

c. [IP S [I’ V [AgrOP O [VP tS tV tO]]]]

I will assume, once again, that given their properties monosyllabic adverbsprovide a good test to check whether the object is inside or outside VP.Recall the distribution of monosyllabic adverbs in English:

(48) a. John read the book well.

b. *John well read the book.

c. John looked hard at those pictures.

d. *John looked at those pictures hard.

In Costa (1996, 1998), the English pattern was analyzed by assuming, fol-lowing Pesetsky (1989) and Johnson (1991), that both verbs and nominalobjects move out of the VP overtly: NPs move to Spec,AgrOP and the verbto the first functional projection immediately above AgrOP. The sequencePP-Adv is bad because these adverbs do not right-adjoin to VP and becausedifferently from nominal complements, PPs do not need to move to licenseCase.

The behavior of these adverbs is not an idiosyncrasy of English. Asalready mentioned in the discussion of subject positions, the same basicgeneralizations hold for Portuguese: a paradigm almost equivalent to (48)may be built for this language:


(49) a. O Paulo fala francês bem.Paulo speaks French well

b. *O Paulo bem fala francês.Paulo well speaks French

c. O Paulo olha bem para aqueles quadros.Paulo looks well at those pictures

d. *O Paulo olha para aqueles quadros bem.Paulo looks at those pictures well

e. O Paulo olha para aqueles quadros BEM.Paulo looks at those pictures well

The crucial difference between English and Portuguese is that only in thelatter is the order V-Adv-NP possible:

(50) a. O Paulo fala bem francês.Paulo speaks well French

b. *Paul speaks well French.

The fact that the nominal complement may either precede or follow theadverb that marks the left edge of the VP is quite similar to the distributionalpattern of nominal complements in scrambling languages: in Dutch andGerman, the objects may appear either to the left or to the right of a VP-adjunct.18 The only difference is that these languages are V-final, hence theadjacency between complement and verb is visible in the case of non-scram-bling. In a language with V-to-I movement, there is only adjacency if thereis no other adjunct in between the inflected verb and the object, as in (51):

(51) O Paulo fala sempre francês bem.Paulo speaks always French well

Given the distribution of monosyllabic adverbs and the possible orderingsbetween the verbal complement and the adverb, I will assume that the wordorder in (52a) traces a scrambling configuration, while the word order in(52b) indicates that the object occupies its base-generated position:

(52) a. [IP V [ scrambled Object [VP Adv [VP tV tObj

b. [IP V [VP Adv [VP tV non-scrambled Object


Having established that adverb placement may be used as a test to identifythe structural position of the complements, let me now go through the prop-erties identified for scrambling in Germanic, and see the similarities betweenscrambled objects in the latter and pre-adverbial or pre-subject objects inPortuguese.

a) Novelty effects (de Hoop 1992; Büring 1997; Webelhuth 1989; Diesing1995; among others):

The first property of the XP-Adv order in European Portuguese I want toconsider is the novelty effects also observed in Dutch/German scrambling.Checking for felicitous answers for questions, we see that in the answer to(53aA) the complement yields new information, and the order of the con-stituents has to be Adv-NP. On the contrary, if it is the adverb that intro-duces new information, the NP that is repeated from the question has to bescrambled, as (53b) shows.

(53) a. A: Há alguém aqui que fale bem francês ou inglês?Is there anyone here who speaks French or English well?

B: #Não, mas o Paulo fala alemão bem.No, but Paulo speaks German well

B’: Não, mas o Paulo fala bem alemão.

b. A: Como é que o Paulo fala francês?How does Paulo speak French

B: O Paulo fala francês bem.the Paulo speaks French well

B’: #O Paulo fala bem francês.

This patterns like Dutch, where the elements that are new information, appearrightmost. The only difference is that rightmost in Dutch means being to theleft of the non-inflected verb:


(54) Dutch:a. A: Wanneer heeft Jan Marie gekust?

When has Jan Marie kissed

B: Jan heeft Marie gisteren gekust.Jan has Maries yesterday kissed.

B’: #Jan heeft gisteren Marie gekust.

b. A: Wie heeft Jan gisteren gekust?Who has Jan yesterday kissed

B: Jan heeft gisteren Marie gekust.Jan has yesterday Marie kissed

B’: #Jan heeft Marie gisteren gekust.

b) Parasitic Gap licensing.

Another similarity between European Portuguese on the one hand and Dutchand German on the other has to do with the fact that scrambling licensesparasitic gaps. Prima facie, this appears to be hard to test, since it is knownthat null objects exist in Portuguese (see Raposo 1986). However, Bianchi& Figueiredo (1994) and Menuzzi (1994) have shown that null objects (ofthe type treated in Raposo’s work) can only occur if the antecedent is inani-mate. This is exemplified in (55) and (56) below:

(55) (Talking of [the car we have just seen]i): (from Menuzzi 1994)

a. O José conhece [NP a mulher [CP que comprou eci].José knows the woman who bought (it)

b. O José [VP ficou nervoso] [CP porque a Maria comprou eci]José got nervous because Maria bought (it).

(56) (talking of [Paulo]i):

a. *O José conhece [NP a mulher [CP que beijou eci].José knows the woman who kissed (him)

b. *O José [VP ficou nervoso] [CP porque a Maria beijou eci]José got nervous because Maria kissed (him)


Bianchi and Figueiredo (1994) and Menuzzi (1994) conclude from the sensi-tivity to islands in (56) that only in these cases is operator movement in-volved. They disagree with respect to the proper characterization of theempty category in (56). Nevertheless, what is relevant for the present dis-cussion is that this difference allows differentiating between null objectsand gaps left by movement.19 A parasitic gap has to be involved when ananimate antecedent is used, since null objects may not be animate, as theexamples above show. Accepting this, it is now possible to test for parasiticgap licensing, excluding the possibility of being misled by results involvinga null object construction. If scrambling in Portuguese is like in Germanic,it is expected that an object be able to license the parasitic gap from thescrambled position, but not from the base-position. This prediction is borneout. Like in German and Dutch, the in-situ object does not license a parasiticgap contained in a left-adjoined PP:

(55) a. *O Pedro conhece [mesmo sem nunca ter visto pg ] bem a Maria.

b. O Pedro conhece a Maria [mesmo sem nunca ter visto pg ].

The post-adverbial object in (55a) cannot license the parasitic gap, unless itis scrambled.

c) Predicative APs and Small Clauses do not scramble.

Like in German and Dutch, Small Clauses and predicative APs do notscramble. This is shown in (56) and (57) below:

(56) a. O Paulo acha sempre a Maria simpática.Paulo finds always Maria friendly

b. *O Paulo acha a Maria simpática sempre.

(57) a. O Paulo é sempre muito simpático.Paulo is always very nice

b. *O Paulo é muito simpático sempre.

In (56), it can be seen that a small clause (complement of the verb achar ‘tofind’) may not be scrambled to the left of the adverb, which modifies the


matrix verb.20 In (57), it is shown that a predicative AP may never scrambleto the left of an adverb modifying a predicative verb.

d) Scrambling does not feed binding.

Although I have not exemplified this property for Dutch and German (seeDéprez 1989, Webelhuth 1989, Vanden Wyngaerd 1989, Müller andSternefeld 1994, Corver and Riemsdijk 1994, among others), in Portuguese,scrambling does not feed binding, patterning like other cases of A-bar move-ment and unlike A-movement. This is exemplified in (58): the sentence (58a)in which the subject contains a possessive anaphor not bound by the QP inobject position does not improve if the object is scrambled across the subject.

(58) a. *Viu o seui pai cadai criança.saw his father each child

b. *Viu cadai criança o seui pai.saw each child his father‘His father saw each child’

As mentioned above, I am not taking into account the binding facts, since I donot think that it is possible to establish a parallel with Germanic. I wantednevertheless to add these data, to show that, in Portuguese, scrambling anobject across a subject does not feed binding. Note that (58b) contrasts with(59), where A-movement is involved and the binding relation can be estab-lished:

(59) Cada criança foi vista pelo seu pai.Each child was seen by his father

e) Scrambling across the subject.

This property cannot be really used as an argument in favor of the scramblinganalysis, since it corresponds to the phenomenon I want to analyze: the orderVOS. Nevertheless, I would like to note that deriving VOS in EP in terms ofscrambling of the object across the in-situ subject is not anomalous, since thisword order also exists in German, being derived in the same way.


From the evidence presented above and the similarities with German andDutch, I conclude that European Portuguese has scrambling of the Germanictype. Moreover, given its properties, scrambling seems to be A-bar move-ment, as has been argued for German and Dutch. I am aware that theassumption that scrambling in German and Dutch is not A-bar movement isquite controversial (see de Hoop 1992, Zwart 1993, Bobaljik 1995 for an A-movement analysis). Here, I will follow Vikner’s (1994) conclusion thatthere is a distinction between scrambling in West Germanic and ObjectShift in Scandinavian. Vikner (1994) compares the constructions in bothlanguage groups, arguing that scrambling is A-bar movement, while object-shift is A-movement. The table below lists the properties associated witheach construction:

Vikner’s (1994) observations summarized in the left-hand columns of (T1)apparently provide robust evidence in favor of the claim that there are twotypes of object movement out of VP: West Germanic scrambling, sharingproperties with O-Adv orders in EP displays A-bar properties, while Scandi-navian object shift displays A-properties. I will assume these results, opting forrepresenting scrambling as adjunction to VP, as in (60a), and object-shift offull NPs, like in Icelandic, as movement to a Case A-position (Spec,AgrOP),as in (60b). These representations will account for the A- vs A-bar propertiesdiscussed above.


Table 1.

German/Dutch Scandinavian EP

Parasitic gap licensing yes no yes

Movement of NPs yes yes yes(Icelandic and Faroese:

NPs; the other languages: pronominal NPs)

Movement of PPs yes no yes

FQ-licensing? no (?)21 yes no22

Order Adv-NP-Adv? yes no yes23

Interaction with no yes noV-movement?

(60) a. [IP [VP Obj [VP Adv [VP tObj

b. [IP [AgrOP Obj [VP Adv [VP tObj

The consequences of establishing the existence of scrambling in EuropeanPortuguese are the following: First, scrambling may not be seen as an OVphenomenon anymore (as suggested, for instance, in Vikner 1994). Further-more, the lack of scrambling in other VO languages such as English becomesan interesting question. Finally, European Portuguese can be consideredanother language allowing for the investigation of what the reason for scram-bling is. Below, an explanation will be offered as to why scrambling does notoccur in a language like English.

Apart from these considerations, note that I have already provided evi-dence in favor of the analysis proposed in section 2 for Portuguese VOS. Inorder to strengthen the analysis, it is important to compare it with an alterna-tive analysis available in the literature, according to which, in VOS sentences,the subject is in Spec,IP.

There are two competing analyses for VOS word orders that may be foundin recent literature. The Scrambling analysis argues that this word order isderived via movement of the verb to I and scrambling of the object acrossthe subject left in its base-generated position. The configuration arrived atmay be as in (61a) or (61b), depending on the assumption regarding the land-ing site of the object (Spec,AgrOP or adjunction to VP). This is the analysisoutlined above. Proponents of this analysis include Zubizarreta (1995),Ordóñez and Treviño (1995), for Spanish, Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou(1998), for Greek, and Costa (1997, 1998) for Portuguese.

(61) a. IP b. IP2 2I AgrOP I VPV 2 V 2

Obj AgrO’ Obj VP2 2

AgrO VP Subj V’2 2

Subj V’ V tObj

2 tV

V tObj

tV


This analysis raises the question of knowing how the subject in Spec,VP isassigned or checks Case. So far, I offered no solution for this problem.

An alternative analysis for this word order in Romance languages isfound in work following Kayne (1998). Let us term this type of analysisRemnant movement. According to the Remnant movement analysis, VOSword orders are arrived at by moving the subject to Spec,IP, or to a left-peripheral functional projection, and moving the remnant constituent TP orVP, containing the trace of the subject to the specifier position of anotherfunctional category higher than the one where the subject has moved to. Theconfigurations obtained are as in (62a,b). Proponents of this type of analysisinclude Kayne and Pollock (1998), for stylistic inversion in French, Ordóñez(1997), Zubizarreta (1998a), and Bok-Benema (1998), for VOS in Spanish,and Ambar and Pollock (1998) for VOS in interrogative contexts in Frenchand Portuguese.

(62) a. FP b. FP13 3

TP F’ IP F’12 2 5 2

T VP F IP tSubj V O F1 FP25 2 2

V O Subj I’ Subj F’22 2I tT/VP F2 tIP

As explicitly emphasized by Zubizarreta (1998a), this type of analysis is ad-vantageous with respect to the scrambling analysis, since the Case problemfinds a solution. In either configuration in (62), the subject has moved orlanded in Spec,IP where it may be assigned nominative Case. However, thisanalysis is not exempt of problems. I will now turn to presenting empiricalarguments listed in Costa (2002b) that seem to disfavor the remnant move-ment analysis, comparing it with the scrambling analysis. It will be shownthat the problems raised to the remnant movement analysis do not ariseunder a scrambling analysis for VOS.

The argumentation will be based on an examination of the followingaspects of VOS sentences:


A – it will be tested whether it can be argued independently for the mobil-ity of the remnant VP/TP;

B – Adverb positioning;C – Floating quantifiers;D – Pronominal doubling and question tags; E – The discourse function of the subject; F – Scope and c-command; G – Clitics;H – Properties of the object.

For each of these properties, it will be shown that the remnant movementanalysis either makes wrong predictions or offers no explanation.

A. TP\VP mobility

Consider a sentence like (63) below with VOS word order:

(63) Leu o livro o Paulo.read the book Paulo

According to the remnant movement analysis, the constituent TP or VP leu olivro (read the book) is moved to the left of the DP subject. Arguably, itshould be possible to find independent evidence for the mobility of this con-stituent. Indeed for a sentence like (83), it is possible to find this type ofindependent motivation. The VP or TP containing the verb and the objectmay be clefted (cf. 64), or preposed (cf. 65):

Cleft:

(64) Foi ler o livro o que o Paulo fez.it was read the book what Paulo did

Preposing:

(65) O Pedro disse que leria o livro o Paulo, e ler o livro o Paulo leu.Pedro said that would-read the book Paulo, and read the book Paulo did

However, if the verbal form is complex, the evidence for mobility of theconstituent TP or VP is not so compelling. For a sentence like (66), it mustbe argued that the constituent containing the sequence Auxiliary-MainVerb-Object is moved to the left of the subject:


(66) Tinha lido o livro o Paulo.had read the book Paulo

However, there is no evidence for movement of this constituent. The con-stituent containing the auxiliary verb, the main verb and the object cannotbe clefted (cf. 67) nor preposed (cf. 68):

Cleft:

(67) *Era ter lido o livro o que o Paulo tinha feito.it was have read the book what Paulo had done

Preposing:

(68) ??O Pedro disse que teria lido o livro o Paulo, e ter lido o livro ele tinha.Pedro said that would-have read the book Paulo, and have read thebook he had.

Thus, there is no clear evidence that the material preceding the subjectforms a constituent that can be moved. The fact that some sequences VO orAux-V-O are not movable is not problematic for a scrambling analysis, sinceno claims are made concerning the necessity of moving this constituent.

Under the scrambling analysis, the only claim that is made is that theobject is moved to the left of the subject. It can be argued that an object maybe moved independently of the complexity of the verbal form. For a pair ofsentences like those in (69), it can be shown that the object may be clefted(cf. 70) or preposed (cf. 71) independently of the material that precedes thesubject.

(69) a. Leu o livro o Paulo.read the book Paulo

b. Tinha lido o livro o Paulohad read the book Paulo

Cleft:

(70) a. Foi o livro o que o Paulo leu.it was the book that Paulo read

b. Era o livro o que o Paulo tinha lido.it was the book that Paulo had read


Preposing:

(71) a. O livro, leu o Paulo.the book, read Paulo

b. O livro, tinha lido o Paulo.the book had read Paulo

In short, postulating that VOS word order is derived via movement of theconstituent containing V and O is problematic, since evidence for the mobil-ity of this constituent is not very strong.

B. Adverb placement

The second problematic set of data for the remnant movement analysiscomes from the distribution of adverbs. Let us consider again the placementof monosyllabic adverb in VOS sentences: as shown above, and repeatedunder (72), the adverb may occur in two positions: either in between theobject and the subject or in between the verb and the object:

(72) a. Leu aqueles livros mal o Paulo.read those books bad Paulo

b. Leu mal aqueles livros o Pauloread bad those books Paulo

It was observed that these adverbs have a very restricted distribution. Never-theless, they appear in two possible positions in a VOS sentence. Under aremnant movement analysis, there is no clear explanation for this pattern.Why should the adverb have a less restricted distribution when there is move-ment of the constituent containing it? The scrambling analysis offers a naturalexplanation for this behavior. Under this analysis, the object is scrambled.The list of properties associated with scrambling led us to the conclusionthat scrambled objects in EP adjoin to VP. If this is true, it is expected thatthere is no fixed order between two VP-adjuncts. V-O-Adv-S and V-Adv-O-Sare the expected word orders. The two possibilities are illustrated in thestructures in (73) and (74):


(73) IP2I VPV 2

Obj VP2

Adv VP2

Subj V’2

V tObj

tV

(74) IP2I VP

V 2Adv VP

2Obj VP

2Subj V’

2V tObj

tV

C. Floating quantifiers

Consider now the behavior of floating quantifiers. As it is well-known, float-ing quantifiers are possible after subject movement to Spec,IP (Sportiche1988, Koopman and Sportiche 1991). In EP, floating quantifiers behave asexpected: they may surface in any post-subject position, tracing the path ofthe subject from Spec, VP to Spec,IP.

(75) a. Os meninos todos tinham lido o livro.the children all had read the book

b. Os meninos tinham todos lido o livro.the children had all read the book

c. Os meninos tinham lido todos o livro.the children had read all the book.


Under the proposal made by the remnant movement analysis, the subjectmoves to Spec,IP, or higher, and the remnant constituent containing its tracemoves to its left. Note that there is no problem in moving a VP or TP con-taining a floating quantifier to the left of a subject. As shown in (76), whena VP is clefted, it may contain a floating quantifier:

(76) Foi ler todos o livro o que os meninos fizeram.it was read all the book what the children did

Considering the assumption of the remnant movement analysis and the factthat moved VPs or TPs may contain floating quantifiers, it is legitimate toclaim that the remnant movement analysis predicts that floating quantifierssurface before the subject in VOS sentences. However, this prediction is notborne out, as shown by the ungrammatical sentences in (77):

(77) a. *Tinham todos lido o livro os meninos.had all read the book the children

b. *Tinham lido todos o livro os meninos.had all read the book the children.

c. Tinham lido o livro todos os meninos.had read the book all the children

The only possibility for the floating quantifier is to occur adjacent to thesubject, that is, in a non-floating position. If we now check the predictionsmade by the scrambling analysis, it is possible to see that this problem doesnot arise. Under the scrambling analysis, the subject stays in Spec, VP,therefore floating quantifiers are not predicted to surface.

D. Topic doubling and question tags

At this point, it is important to recall the difference between VOS with flatintonation vs VOS with a right-peripheral subject. Recall that only the lattercan be doubled by a pronoun, and that they may surface after a question tag.The behavior of subjects in the latter type of construction is not differentfrom the behavior of other constituents. Topic information appearing sen-tence-finally after a pause can be doubled by a clitic or a pronoun, as shownin (78). This is true for direct objects, indirect objects and subjects. The only


difference between the latter and the internal arguments of the verb is that theabsence of subject clitics in Portuguese forces doubling by a strong pronoun.

(78) a. Direct object:O Paulo leu-o, esse livro.Paulo read it, that book

b. Indirect object:O Paulo deu-lhe o livro, à Maria.Paulo gave her the book to Maria

c. Subject:Ele leu o livro, o Paulo.he read the book, Paulo

Clause-internal material cannot be doubled. This is true for direct objects, asin (79a), in which the direct object appears right after the doubling clitic with-out a pause, and left-adjacent to a marker of the right-edge of the sentence.It is also true for the indirect object, as in (79b), in which the indirect objectappears before the direct object and adjacent to the doubling clitic, withoutbeing preceded by a pause. The fact that doubling is only possible withclause-external material enables a distinction between this pattern of cliticdoubling and the pattern of clitic doubling exhibited by other languages, inwhich the clitic may double clause-internal elements. Based on the contrastsbetween (78) and (79), it is legitimate to assume that the pronominal elementsoccupy the thematic positions, and the DPs are peripheral to the sentence.

(79) a. Direct object:*O Paulo leu-o esse livro ontem.Paulo read it that book yesterday

b. Indirect object:*O Paulo deu-lhe à Maria o livro.Paulo gave her to Maria the book

Let us now consider the case of subjects. Like the direct and indirect object,subjects can only be doubled if they follow a question tag or any other markerof the right edge of the sentence, no matter whether the pronoun is preverbalor postverbal. Thus, they behave like the other sentence constituents.


(80) a. Ele leu o livro, não leu?, o Paulohe read the book, didn’t he?, Paulo

b. Leu o livro ele, não leu?, o Paulo.read the book he, not read, Paulo

c. *Ele leu o livro o Paulo, não leu?he read the book Paulo, didn’t he?

Let us now consider the relevance of this behavior for the analysis of VOSsentences. In a specific implementation of the remnant movement analysisfor accounting for stylistic inversion in French, Kayne and Pollock (1998)argue that, in VOS sentences, the subject is in Spec,TopP. As we have seenabove, topic subjects can be doubled. Even if they are sentence-initial, theycan be doubled in some contexts (see section 2):

(81) O Paulo, ele leu esse livro.Paulo, he read that book

The question that arises for Kayne and Pollock’s analysis is why the allegedtopic cannot be doubled in VOS order without a break, as shown above andrepeated in (82).

(82) *Ele leu o livro o Paulo.he read the book Paulo

The remnant movement analysis for VOS proposed in Kayne and Pollock(1998) offers no clear answer for the ungrammaticality of (82). Under thescrambling analysis, this pattern is expected. The subject is clause-internal,it is in Spec, VP. Since it is not in a topic position, doubling is not expected.

E. Discourse function of the subject

So far, I have not explicitly discussed the relation between the several wordorders and discourse. It will be shown, however, that the sentence-final sub-ject in VOS word orders is a focus. This may be tested in the followingquestion-answer pair:


(83) A: Quem leu o livro?who read the book

B: Leu o livro o Paulo.read the book Paulo

In Portuguese, contrastive foci are marked with stress (Frota 1998). Crucially,a constituent may be simultaneously information and contrastive focus. Inother words, it may answer a question and be marked with strong stress.The difference between (83) and (84) is that the answer in (84) implies thatonly Paulo and no-one else read the book.

(84) A: Quem leu o livro?who read the book

B: Leu o livro O PAULO.read the book Paulo

Having noted this discourse function of the subject for Spanish VOS orders,Ordóñez (1997) proposes that, since the subject in VOS is focused, it ismoved to a left-peripheral functional projection codifying focus information:Focus Phrase. The remnant constituent yielding old information (in (83) and(84), the constituent containing the verb and the object) is moved to a topicposition to the left of the focus position.

Although it may account for the discourse function of the subject, thisanalysis is problematic. In his study of the left-periphery, Rizzi (1997) showsthat wh-phrases and displaced focused constituents are in complementarydistribution. The prediction made by Ordóñez’s implementation of the rem-nant movement analysis is then that wh-phrases in VOS word orders shouldbe ungrammatical. As shown below, this prediction is not borne out:

(85) A quem deu o livro O PAULO?to whom gave the book Paulo

Under Kayne and Pollock’s (1998) analysis, it is proposed that the subject isin Spec,TopP. Assuming this, the problem raised by Ordóñez’s analysis doesnot arise, but the relation with the actual discourse function of the subject isleft unexplained.

Ambar and Pollock (1998) provide a good argument in favor of Kayneand Pollock’s analysis. They note that in interrogative contexts with VOS


order, the sentence-final subject cannot be a pronoun or an indefinite pronoun.Crucially, these elements cannot be topicalized in Portuguese. The similaritybetween the type of subject that occurs sentence-finally in VOS interrogativesand the type of subject that can be topicalized provides, thus, clear evidencein favor of the analysis according to which the sentence final subject inVOS is in Spec,TopP.

(86) a. A quem deu o livro o João?to whom gave the book João

b. *A quem deu o livro ele?to whom gave the book he

c. *A quem deu o livro alguém?to whom gave the book someone

Although the argument is a good one, the analysis proposed in terms of topi-calization and remnant movement is not exempt of problems. First, note thatthe sentence-final position for the subject is not reserved for topics. As shownin (85), other discourse functions, such as contrastive focus, are available inthis position.

More problematic for the analysis proposed is that there is no additionalindependent evidence for the claim that the subject is topicalized. One expectsto find properties of topicalization in VOS word orders in interrogative con-texts. Duarte (1987, 1996) identifies several properties of topicalization inEuropean Portuguese that may be used to test Ambar and Pollock’s claim.

Duarte shows that topicalized elements license parasitic gaps. This is illus-trated in (87a). Accordingly, the sentence-final subject in VOS interrogativesshould be able to license parasitic gaps, since it is assumed to occupy a topicA-bar position. However, parasitic gaps are not found in this context (cf.87b).

No parasitic gap licensing:

(87) a. Esse artigo, o João elogiou sem ter lido.that article, João praised without having read

b. *Quando foram criticados sem o Paulo ter lido os artigos?when were criticized without Paulo have read the articles

If there is a main clause and an embedded clause, constituents from each ofthese clauses may be topicalized, as shown in (88a’). The prediction made by


Ambar and Pollock’s analysis is thus that both subjects of the main and theembedded clause may be topicalized, as in (89b), and the remnant IPs moveto the functional categories to the left of the landing site of the subject, as in(89c). This would derive a word order in which both subjects would appearadjacent at the end of the sentence. However, this word order is ungrammati-cal (cf. 88b).24

No multiple topicalization:

(88) a. O Pedro disse à Maria que o Paulo ia à praia nesse dia.Pedro said to Maria that Paulo would-go to the beach on that day

a.’ À Maria, o Pedro disse que, à praia, o Paulo ia nesse dia.to Maria Pedro said that to the beach Paulo would go on that day

b. *Quando disse que ia à praia o Paulo o Pedro?When said that would-go to the beach Paulo Pedro

(89) a. wh-movement[CP Quando [FP [TopP [IP o Pedro disse [CP que [FP [TopP [IP o Paulo ia àpraia twh ]]]]]]]]

b. Subject topicalization in both clauses[CP Quando [FP [TopP o Pedro [IP tDP disse [CP que [FP [TopP o Paulo [IP tDP

ia à praia twh ]]]]]]]]

b. Remnant IP-movement:[CP Quando [FP [IP tDP disse [CP que[FP [IP tDP ia à praia twh ][TopP oPaulo tIP ]]]] [TopP o Pedro tIP ]]]

A final problem for Ambar and Pollock’s analysis comes from the lack ofparallelism with another property of topicalization. As shown in (90), con-stituents other than subjects can be moved to the topic position of the mainclause. This is an option available for the subject, as shown in (90b).

(90) a. O Pedro contou à Maria que o Paulo vai ao cinema.Pedro told Maria that Paulo goes to the movies

b. O Paulo, o Pedro contou à Maria que t vai ao cinema.

c. À Maria, o Pedro contou t que o Paulo vai ao cinema.

d. Ao cinema, o Paulo contou que o Paulo vai t.


Since the topicalizations in (90) are possible, the prediction made is that inan interrogative sentence, any of these constituents of the embedded clausemay surface in sentence-final position. However, as (91) illustrates, only the(allegedly topicalized) subject may occur in this position. The remnant move-ment analysis incorrectly predicts the grammaticality of (91b) and (91c).

(91) a. Quando t contou à Maria que o Paulo vai ao cinema o Pedro?when told Maria that Paulo goes to the movies Pedro

b. *Quando o Pedro contou à Maria que t vai ao cinema o Paulo?

c. *Quando o Pedro contou t que o Paulo vai ao cinema à Maria?

Under the scrambling analysis, the lack of parallelism with topicalizationconstructions is not a problem. If the subject stays in Spec, VP, it may beinterpreted as the focus of the sentence, since it is in the rightmost/mostembedded position, where it may be assigned sentence nuclear stress (Nesporand Vogel 1986, Cinque 1993, Zubizarreta 1998, among others), an issue wewill return to in the next chapter. The interpretation of the subject as focuswill follow from the interaction between prosody and syntax, rather than froman association with a specific functional projection. The topical propertiesof sentence-final subjects in interrogative contexts are not entirely unex-pected nor constitute a problem for the scrambling analysis: the intonationof interrogative sentences is different; hence no prediction regarding thediscourse function of the subject is made. As shown in Mateus et alii (1989),wh-questions have an initial rising tone and lowering at the end, which pre-dicts that constituents that can be downstressed (like topics) will tend toemerge sentence-finally.

F. Scope and c-command

In VOS sentences, the object c-commands the subject. This statement isconfirmed by the fact that a quantified object may scope over the subject, asin the ambiguous sentence in (92), and by the principle-C effects induced inVOS sentence, as in (93) and (94). In both cases, an object preceding thesubject seems to c-command it.

Quantifier scope:

(92) Leram um livro dois alunos. (O>S, S>O)read a book two students


Principle-C effects:

(93) SVO:a. O irmão do Pauloi viu-oi.

the brother of Paulo saw him

VOS:b. *Viu-oi o irmão do Pauloi

saw him the brother of Paulo

(94) SV IO DO:a. O irmão do Pauloi deu-lhei o livro.

the brother of Paulo gave him the book

V IO DO S:b. *Deu-lhei o livro o irmão do Pauloi

gave him the book the brother of Paulo

These facts based on quantifier scope and violation of principle-C are prob-lematic for the remnant movement analysis. According to this analysis, aconfiguration is obtained in which the object is a constituent of the movedconstituent. The configuration obtained is as in (95). Note that, in such astructure, the object does not c-command the subject:

(95) [FP [TP\VP V O ][XP S....]]

The prediction made by the remnant movement analysis is, thus, that objectsin VOS sentences should not take scope over the subject, and that thereshould be no violation of principle-C, since, in (95), the object does not c-command the subject. Note that reconstruction would not help, since theobject would never c-command the subject.

The prediction made by the scrambling analysis is that object-wide scopeand violations of principle-C are found. The configuration obtained afterscrambling of the object across the subject is like the one in (96). In this con-figuration, the object c-commands the subject:

(96) [FP V [XP O [VP S ]]]

The ambiguity of quantifier scope may be explained by the scrambling analy-sis, assuming that the scrambled object is able to reconstruct into its basegenerated position, in which it is c-commanded by the subject.


G. Clitics: enclisis vs. proclisis

As it is well-known, the distribution of clitics in European Portuguese maybe dependent on syntactic properties of the sentence (cf. Duarte and Matos2000, among others). A clitic cooccurring with a preverbal non quantifiedDP subjects is enclitic, as shown in (97):

(97) a. O Paulo viu-o.Paulo saw him

b. *O Paulo o viu.

If the subject is quantified, as in (98), proclisis is triggered:

(98) a. Ontem todos os meninos o viram.yesterday all the children him saw

b. *Ontem todos os meninos viram-no.

Recall that the remnant movement analysis proposes that, in VOS sentences,the subject is in Spec,IP or at least has passed through this position. The pre-diction made by this analysis is that a quantified subject in VOS sentencesshould trigger proclisis. However, this prediction is not borne out. Enclisisis the pattern found in VOS sentences:25

(99) a. *Ontem o deram à Maria todos os meninos.yesterday it gave to Maria all the children

b. Ontem deram-no à Maria todos os meninos.

Note that the argument based on the distribution of clitics also holds for wh-phrases that remain in-situ. A moved wh-phrase triggers proclisis, as illus-trated below:

(100) a. Quem o leu?who it read

b. *Quem leu-o?who read it


A subject wh-phrase in VOS context does not trigger proclisis:

(101) a. *O deu à Maria quem?it gave to Maria who

b. Deu-o à Maria quem?gave it to Maria who

These patterns of clitic placement, that are problematic for the remnant move-ment analysis, are expected under the scrambling analysis. According to thelatter, subjects in VOS contexts are in their base-generated position, Spec,VP. Since proclisis is only triggered by quantified subjects in Spec,IP, it ispredicted that clitics are enclitic in this context.

There is an objection that may be raised to this argument. Let us assumewith Kayne and Pollock (1998) and Ambar and Pollock (1998) that the sub-ject in VOS is in a topic position. In such case, it could be argued that procli-sis is not expected, since topicalization does not trigger proclisis, independ-ently of the position of the subject:

(102) a. Esse livro, o Paulo leu-o.that book, Paulo read it

b. Esse livro leu-o o Paulothat book read it Paulo

However, if the topic is quantified, proclisis is triggered, as argued inRaposo (2000):

(103) Muitos livros lhe leu o Paulo.many books him read Paulo

We are now able to test whether it may be argued that proclisis is not trig-gered because the subject is topicalized. The test case is the use of a quanti-fied subject in VOS context. As shown in (104), a quantified subject in VOSsimilar to the object in (103) does not trigger proclisis:

(104) a. Leram-lhe livros muitos meninos.read him book many children

b. *Lhe leram livros muitos meninos.him read books many children


The fact that enclisis is always obtained independently of the properties ofthe subject permits discarding the objection to this argument based on theidea that subjects in VOS sentences are topicalized.

H. Properties of the object

The acceptability of VOS sentences varies depending on the type of objectof the sentence. So far, almost all examples contain definite or strong DPsas objects. However, if the object is indefinite, the acceptability of the sen-tence is not as good, and it clearly degrades with non-specific indefiniteDPs:

(105) a. ?Viu um gato o Paulo.saw a cat Paulo

b. *Viu um homem qualquer o Paulo.saw some man Paulo

c. ??Leu algo o Pauloread something Paulo

This relation between the properties of the object and the degree of grammati-cality of the sentence is problematic for the remnant movement analysis.According to this analysis, the object is just a part of the moved constituent.There is thus no clear reason for there to be sensitivity to the definiteness ofa subconstituent of the moved XP.

This problem does not arise under the scrambling analysis. The constituentthat is moved in order to yield the VOS order is the object. It is therefore notsurprising that there is some sensitivity to the definiteness of the moved con-stituent itself. That scrambling is better with definite DPs than with indefiniteDPs is a well-known fact in Germanic languages (see de Hoop 1992 amongothers). We thus find just a similar pattern in Romance.

Summing up, although it solves the Case problem, the remnant movementanalysis faces a high number of empirical problems that do not arise underthe scrambling analysis. Incidentally, we ended up finding some additionalarguments in favor of the scrambling analysis by comparing the two. Takinginto consideration the arguments listed above, I will not consider the remnantmovement analysis for the derivation of VOS word orders in EP.


So far, nothing has been said concerning the trigger for scrambling configu-rations. In recent literature, three proposals have been made to account forthe nature of scrambling:

a) Scrambling is A-movement and it is case-driven

b) Scrambling is A-bar movement:i) Semantically-drivenii) Prosodically-driven

In what follows, I review these three hypotheses, arguing in favor of theprosodic-driven approach by showing that it is the one that provides the bestaccount of the data.

Several authors have suggested that scrambling is movement to Spec,-AgrOP, hence driven by the requirement for objects to check accusative fea-tures (Vanden Wyngaerd 1989, Mahajan 1990, de Hoop 1992, Zwart 1993,Bobaljik 1995 among others).

Under this hypothesis, there should be no difference between Scramblingof the type just investigated and Object-shift in languages like Danish,Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish (Holmberg 1986, Webelhuth1989, Vikner 1994, Bobaljik 1995, among others).26 However, as mentionedabove, object-movement in object-shift languages more clearly displays A-movement properties that scrambled objects in Dutch, German and Portu-guese.

Two additional arguments may be considered for not considering scram-bling Case-driven movement.

a) Adverbs that are subcategorized by verbs scramble in Dutch (Costa 1995:131a) shows that a verb like live in the relevant interpretation is not gram-matical if no argument is selected. The argument may be either specific(106b) or non-specific (106c).27 Adding another adverb to check the posi-tion of the subcategorized one shows that the adverb can be scrambled(106e,h). If a non-specific adverb is scrambled (106g,j), the sentencesbecome ungrammatical (under a non-specific reading).

(106) a. *Ik woon.I live

b. Ik woon daar.I live there


c. Ik woon ergens.I live somewhere

d. Ik woon steeds daar.all-the-time

e. Ik woon daar steeds.

f. Ik woon steeds ergens.

g. *Ik woon ergens steeds.

h. dat ik daar steeds woon.

i. dat ik steeds daar woon.

j. *dat ik ergens steeds woon.

k. dat ik steeds ergens woon.

This pattern is very similar to the behavior of NPs. The null hypothesis is tosubsume both categories under the same phenomenon. Assuming, as usual,that adverbs do not require case, the movement of the adverbs may not bedriven by case.

b) Another argument against case-driven scrambling comes from the be-havior of subjects of unaccusatives in Portuguese: as hypothesized above,subjects in Portuguese may either stay in Spec, VP or move to Spec,IP.Allegedly, subjects of unaccusatives do not stay in Spec, VP but in theirobject base position. This is not possible to determine for Portuguese, but ithas been noted for Italian by Pinto (1994,1997) that subjects of transitivesand intransitives may not be low in wide focus context, while subjects of un-accusatives may be. Crucially, subjects of unaccusatives can also scramble,as shown in (107c) by the order NP-adv.

(107) a. O Paulo chegou depressa.Paulo arrived fast

b. Chegou depressa o Paulo, não chegou?.arrived fast Paulo, not arrived

c. Chegou o Paulo depressa.arrived Paulo fast


In case scrambling were to reduce to case-driven movement, this patternwould remain very mysterious: if the central property of unaccusative verbsis that they do not assign accusative case to their objects, scrambling of theobject of unaccusatives should always be bad, since there would be object-movement to an inert case-licensing projection. As (107c) shows, that is notthe case: movement of the subject is possible, but case is not licensed, hencethe target of movement is not a case-licensing position. Note that it cannot beargued that the object has moved to a potential landing site for Case-licensing,since that yields ungrammatical results in other types of constructions inPortuguese. For instance, in (108), a subject in a raising construction maynot be stranded in the embedded infinitival Spec,IP (a potential case-licensingposition):

(108) *Parecem os meninos comer o bolo.Seem(3ps-pl) the kids eat the cake

Given the counter-arguments presented here, and also those presented inVikner (1994), I conclude that scrambling is not (case-driven) A-movement.

If scrambling is not A-movement, the other option is that it is A-bar move-ment, not considering the existence of mixed positions. Diesing (1995) andDiesing and Jelinek (1995) take the fact that scrambling seems to havesemantic effects, more in particular specificity effects, following de Hoop(1992), as evidence for an approach taking semantics to be the motivationfor scrambling. According to Diesing and Jelinek (1995), scrambling is atype-mismatch repair operation. Following Diesing’s (1992) Mapping hy-pothesis, they propose that definite NPs and QPs have to scramble out of VPin order to escape existential closure. That is, VP is a domain for existentialmaterial. Since definite NPs and QPs are not existential, they may not bewithin that domain by the time a derivation reaches LF. Since definites mayappear inside or outside VP at surface-structure, they suggest that this opera-tion may apply overtly or covertly, provided that at LF the right mapping maybe established: at LF, there may be neither definite NPs nor QPs within VP.

A problem they are left with is the fact that indefinites do not fall under thescope of this operation, since there is no problem for them to be within thedomain of existential closure. However, indefinites may scramble, as in (109).In order to solve this problem, Diesing and Jelinek (1995) propose thatscrambling of indefinites follows from the assumption that the Scope Con-dition applies at S-structure in German. According to this condition, for anelement to have scope over another element, the former must c-command the


latter. This condition is semantically defined, and must hold at LF. Accordingto the authors, the specificity of German is that the effects of the ScopeCondition are surface-true. This assumption is based on the observation thatdifferent semantic representations result, depending on whether the indefi-nite follows or precedes an adverb.

(109) German (from Diesing 1995)

a. weil Elly immer Lieder singt.since Elly always songs sings

a.’ ALWAYSt [time (t)] ∃x song(x) & sings (Elly,x,t)

b. weil Elly Lieder immer singtsince Elly songs always sings

b.’ ALWAYSx[song(x)] sings(Elly,x)

Diesing and Jelinek’s proposal may be falsified if we find a case of scram-bling of indefinites across an adverb which does not affect the semantic/temporal representation of the sentence. Such a case would be problematicfor their analysis, since we would have a case in which the indefinite doesnot need to take scope over the adverb and yet it scrambles. Such examplesin which no ambiguity between adverb and indefinite arises, and scramblingof indefinites is still possible, exist and are exemplified in (110). The differ-ence between (109) and (110) lies in the choice of adverb. If we control foran adverb that has no effect on the semantics of the sentence, the predictionwould be that scrambling of indefinites becomes impossible. However, thatis not true. In (110), there is no necessary scope relation to be establishedbetween the indefinite and the manner adverb, and yet the scrambling orderis possible:

(110) a. O Paulo fala bem uma língua.Paulo speaks well a language

b. O Paulo fala francês bem.Paulo speaks a language well

An interesting fact about the adverbs that Diesing (1992,1995) and Diesingand Jelinek (1995) use has been brought up to my attention by Danny Fox(p.c.). He notes that their examples involve adverbs like always (cf. 109)whose semantics is sensitive to focus in the sense of Rooth (1985). If these


effects are controlled for, scrambling appears to be still possible. Moving abit ahead, and supposing that scrambling and focus are related, it is not sur-prising that changing the location of focus will change the semantics ofthese sentences. Depending on the location of focus, the adverb will associatewith the indefinite or not (captured in Diesing and Jelinek’s analysis in termsof scopal relations). If the adverb is sensitive to focus and the indefinite isfocused, the adverb will associate with the indefinite. If the focus is on someother constituents, the meaning of the sentence will be different.

Under a strictly semantic account, leaving aside discourse effects, thiscorrelation between adverbs, scope and focus would be hard to identify. I takethis observation as the first piece of evidence in favor of the idea that scram-bling is basically associated with the discourse structure of the sentence, inthe sense of Reinhart (1995).28

The last hypothesis concerning the motivation for scrambling and theone I am going to adopt was outlined in Reinhart (1995). Adopting Cinque’s(1993) sentence stress algorithm, which states that the most deeply embeddedconstituent of a sentence is the one that will receive the most prominentstress, Reinhart observes that in a normal SOV sentence in Dutch, the objectis the most embedded constituent; hence it is the element bearing the mostprominent stress and gets interpreted as the focus. Obviously, a distinctionmust be established between default stress and marked stress: the defaultstress is the one that follows from the stress algorithms proposed in Nesporand Vogel (1986), Cinque (1993) and Nash (1995), and normally associateswith clause-final position and correlates with embedding. Heavy prosodicstress is required when the syntactic configuration obviates the applicationof the default rule (e.g. stress shifting and heavy stress on focused subjectsin English, cf. Zubizarreta 1995 among others). Now, where does scramblingcome in? According to Reinhart, the motivation for scrambling is to be foundat the interface between PF constraints and discourse-structure. The motiva-tion for scrambling the object is to make it escape the default focus stress.Actually, Reinhart proposes that scrambling allows the verb to be focused.However, this description of the facts seems not to be entirely correct, forseveral reasons: in both Dutch and German, the verb may be focused withoutresorting to scrambling: it is sufficient to shift the stress; scrambling acrossan adverb focuses the adverb independently of the stress that the verb receives(see Baart 1987, Büring 1997 among others for the relevant data). The prob-lem with Reinhart’s initial generalization is that the difference between de-fault and marked stress, though acknowledged, is not completely spelledout. Default stress appears as the normal stress in declarative sentences,


marked stress requires a marked intonation contour on the focused constitu-ent.29 Once these two are differentiated, it is easy to see what the generaliza-tion is like: the complement of the verb scrambles in order to leave theadjunct in the most embedded position where the latter can receive the mostprominent stress by default. Of course, for the complement to be able to dothis, it must not require stress itself. Scrambling is thus a twofold operation:on the one hand it involves defocusing of the object, on the other hand it isan operation that allows another constituent to be stressed.30 Scrambling ispossible with stress on the verb, but then marked stress is needed. Datashowing these differences are presented in Baart (1987). Independently ofthis, Reinhart’s analysis seems correct: scrambling is used for creatingappropriate focus configurations, namely to make the element bearing thesentence nuclear stress escape it.

Let us see how this hypothesis is corroborated by Portuguese (the dataare similar in Dutch and German): in (111), it is expected that the object bethe focus of the sentence given that it is the new information requested in thequestion. Indeed in this case the object cannot be scrambled, as the infelici-tous sentence in (111Ba) shows:

(111) A: O que é que o Paulo fala bem?what does Paulo speak well?

B: a. #O Paulo fala francês bem.Paulo speaks French well

b. O Paulo fala bem francês.Paulo speaks well French

If, on the other hand, the adverb is questioned, so that the object is old infor-mation, it must not be in the position where it gets default stress; hence itmust be scrambled, allowing the adverb to receive the default stress:

(112) A: Como é que o Paulo fala Francês?how does Paulo speak French?

B: O Paulo fala francês bem.Paulo speaks French well.

#O Paulo fala bem francês.Paulo speaks well French


An interesting piece of data brought to my attention by Martin Honcoop isthe case in which a scrambled element is associated with focus, which, inprinciple, seems to disconfirm Reinhart’s theory:

(113) Jan zei dat ik DE KRANT gisteren las, (en het boek vandaag)Jan said that I the newspaper yesterday read, and the book today

This example is interesting because the NP is scrambled while it is also partof the focus of the sentence. However, there are two important differencesbetween this case and the cases Reinhart describes: first, the scrambled NPbears heavy stress, and second, the NP is not the focus of the sentence byitself. When this sentence is uttered, the speaker intends to focus both theNP and the adverb gisteren/yesterday. According to Reinhart (1995), thefocus set of a sentence is the constituent bearing the most prominent stressplus everything it dominates. That is, in order to build an appropriate focusset for (113), the speaker has to make the object dominate the adverb. Theonly way to do that is by scrambling it. Now, according to the motivationfor scrambling that explored by Reinhart, the scrambled position will notallow the object to receive the default stress of the sentence, since it is notthe rightmost constituent anymore. The only way to make it the focus of thesentence is to resort to prosodic stress (see also Nash 1995).

Therefore, example (113), rather than disconfirming Reinhart’s theorypresents evidence in favor of it: scrambling is related to the need to createappropriate focus configurations: furthermore, it is related to defocusing,since the NP in the scrambled position cannot be the focus of the sentenceunless it bears a heavy stress. The only way in which (113) would be prob-lematic would be if the scrambled NP were be the focus and the adverbwere not included in the focus set of the sentence. Under that interpretation,(113) is infelicitous.

Summing up, in this section, I have shown that European Portuguese hasscrambling of the German/Dutch type, by looking at the properties of scram-bling in Dutch and German, and by comparing them with the order NP-Advin European Portuguese. I have argued that scrambling is an A-bar movementoperation that adjoins the complement of the verb to VP. Finally, I discussedthe motivation for scrambling, arguing in favor of Reinhart’s (1995) prosodic/discourse explanation of scrambling. I showed that this was the hypothesisfacing the least number of empirical problems.

Crucial for the discussion in this chapter is the conclusion that subjectsin VOS orders may be analyzed as being stranded in Spec, VP.


Two questions remain unanswered: in which contexts are in-situ subjectsand how is the licensing of in-situ subjects done? These will be the topics ofthe next chapter.


4. Inversion and information structure

4.1. Introduction

In this chapter, it is argued that, in a language like European Portuguese,properties of the information structure partially determine the distribution ofarguments. It will be argued that subjects stay in Spec, VP, only if they arefocused, and that in-situ subjects are licensed under Agree (cf. Chomsky2001). Likewise, they may only raise to Spec,IP if they are not focused, andwhen the entire sentence is focused. The view on focus to be adopted is thatinformation focus is rightmost, for prosodic convergence. This analysis offocus leads to a number of questions regarding my assumptions concerningthe exact formulation of this constraint. A very common view on focus is toassume that focused constituents must be licensed at the specifier of a func-tional projection (Focus Phrase), which in most analyses appears at the leftperiphery of the sentence (Brody 1990; Kiss 1995; Rizzi 1997). In the analysisto be developed here, the exact reverse effect is obtained: focused constituentsappear at the rightmost position of the sentence. As it will be shown later, thetwo approaches are not incompatible, but they operate on two different kindsof discourse objects. Nevertheless, it is important to be clear about what typeof focus I am talking about, and why I am defending an in-situ analysis offocus rather than an analysis that involves raising to a functional projection.Therefore, I will present some arguments against a focus-movement ap-proach.

Let me emphasize, for the sake of clarity, that I will be looking at infor-mation focus: that is, focus that conveys new information (Dik 1978; Büring1997; de Hoop and Swart 2000; Kiss 1996 among many others). Thisremark is important, since the term focus is often used with a very widevariety of meanings, rendering discussion of phenomena and identificationof scope of research quite difficult (see Givón 1990 for classification andexamples of several constructions involving focus-related aspects). I aminterested in this study in the focus that is normally associated with a highpitch accent (Selkirk 1984, among others) and that can be identified in ques-tion-answer pairs and correction contexts. This type of focus is often calledinformation focus. That is, it is focus in the sense that it conveys new infor-

mation without altering the truth value of the sentence (see Vallduví 1990,among others). This excludes from the discussion contrastive focus andfocus involving uniqueness or exhaustive listing in the sense of Szabolcsi(1981). In the last section of this chapter, I will present some tests to distin-guish the several types of focus, and show that they do not necessarily inter-sect. The behavior of contrastive focus will be shown to be different both indistribution and in meaning. Below I provide examples of each of the con-structions involving foci, in order to specify which will be the topic of thischapter:

(1) Focus Constructions:

a. In situ:Comeu a sopa o Paulo.Ate the soup Paulo

b. Syntactically marked focus (cf. Raposo 1994, among others)Muito vinho o João bebeu!a-lot-of wine João drunk

c. Focus-preposing (ungrammatical in Portuguese, OK in otherlanguages).

*ESSE LIVRO, o João leu.That book João read

(1a) will be the topic of this chapter. I will not talk about (1b), which is dis-cussed in Uriagereka (1995), Raposo (1994), among others, since its discoursecharacteristics are different from (1a), and I will argue that the ungrammati-cality of (1c) in European Portuguese is an additional argument for not con-sidering focus-preposing as an argument for movement of foci.

4.2. Focus-movement?

Focus is represented in different ways in different languages. While a languagelike English displays focus in situ, as in (2), a language like Hungarianseems to require movement for licensing focused constituents:

(2) I saw JOHN.

72 Inversion and information structure

(3) a. AZ ÚJSÁGOT dobtam el. (from Horvath 1995)the newspaper threw-I away

b. *Eldobtam AZ ÚJSÁGOT.

Chomsky (1976) has argued, on the basis of the contrast in (4), that even inEnglish focused constituents need to be moved. Chomsky showed thatfocus as in (4b) induces weak-cross-over effects just like other operators doe.g. in (5):

(4) a. Hisi mother saw Johni

b. *Hisi mother saw JOHNi.

(5) *Whoi does hisi mother like?

According to Chomsky, the most natural way to explain the parallelismbetween (4b) and (5) is to assume that, at LF, focused constituents moveestablishing an operator-variable relation with their traces, yielding a structurelike (6b) for a sentence like (6a):

(6) a. Mary loves JOHN.

b. [S JOHNi [S Mary loves ti ]]

This accounts for the weak cross over effects in a rather natural way. TheLF-representation of (6b) is a violation of Koopman and Sportiche’s (1983)bijection principle in the same way the overt syntax of (5) is:

(5) *[S JOHNi [S hisi mother loves ti ]]

(6) Bijection Principle:

There is a bijective correspondence between variables and A-barpositions.

Given (6), the problem with (5) is that ‘John’ is binding two variables: thepronoun and the trace, yielding a violation of the bijection principle.

The weak-cross-over argument together with the existence of overtfocus-movement in Hungarian led linguists to assume that languages withfocus in-situ like English need to move focused constituents at LF.31

Focus-movement? 73

Movement theories of focus have been criticized in Anderson (1972), Rooth(1985), von Stechow (1990), among others, on the basis of their failure toaccount in an appropriate way for lack of ECP and subjacency effects, multi-ple foci and crossing paths at LF. I will briefly discuss these three problems.

First of all, Focus displays a lack of ECP and subjacency effects. If focusinvolves movement, focusing should be impossible within a barrier for ex-traction. That this is not true can be seen from the following examples:32

(7) Focus on an embedded subject (that-trace effects are expected):Mary thinks that JOHN will go to the movies.

(8) Focus within an adjunct:Mary arrived late because she was SICK.

(9) Focus within shifted Heavy NPs:I read yesterday all the books MY teacher recommended.

(10) Focus inside Wh-islands:I wonder what to write with THIS PEN.

(11) Focus inside a complex NP:John announced a plan to steal FIVE cars tonight.

(12) Focus within a coordinate structure:John saw Mary and ALL the other students.

Any movement approach to focus predicts that these sentences should beungrammatical, since ECP effects (and subjacency) are assumed to be opera-tive at all levels of representation (May 1985; Huang 1982; Koster 1987; Bayer1995). If alternatively, one would assume that ECP is not operative at LF,one would miss the empirical generalization that may be drawn consideringLF-movement, namely the similarities with overt movement (cf. the studiescited above).

Another problem with assuming that focused constituents move at LF (on apar with wh-movement) is the existence of multiple foci:

(13) a. JOHN saw MARY.

b. John gave the BOOK to BILL.


The problem with these sentences is different depending on the theory offocus-movement assumed. If it is assumed, as Brody (1990) does, thatfocused constituents enter a Spec,Head agreement relation with a Focushead and that Hungarian is the overt counterpart of English, this wouldimply that a head has multiple specifiers.33 This in turn predicts a lack ofadjacency between the foci and the element lexicalizing the head (V inHungarian, according to Brody (1990)). However, multiple focus movementis not possible in Hungarian:

(14) Évat János várta a mozi elótt. (from Kiss 1995)Eve-acc John waited the cinem in-front-ofEve, JOHN waited for her in front of the cinema.

If multiple specifiers are permitted, sentence (14) might incorrectly yieldthe English interpretation in (15). An uniformization with wh- in situ is notpossible, since the postverbal PP in (14) is not interpreted as focus:

(15) JOHN waited for EVE in front of the cinema.

The third problem comes from the fact that focus movement may createcrossing paths at LF. This argument obviously does not go through in theoriesallowing for crossing paths (e.g. Chomsky 1995). I will not take a positionwith respect to whether the theory should or should not allow for crossingpaths. In case it should not (Pesetsky 1982, Kayne 1994), these cases remainproblematic. The creation of crossing paths at LF arises in a focus move-ment analysis for a sentence like (16):

(16) Who did JOHN wait for?

This sentence should be ungrammatical because moving JOHN at LF wouldinduce a crossing path, which is a ill-formed path according to Pesetsky(1982):

(16’) JOHN who did’t wait for t?

These three types of evidence should be enough to discard an analysis offocus in terms of movement. However, there is still the evidence fromWCO-effects and the distribution of focus in Hungarian. I will return tothese problems after finishing the discussion of the focus-movement analyses.

Focus-movement? 75

If focus-movement exists, it is also important to determine the exact natureof this movement: focus movement establishes an operator-variable relation,but why should there be such a relation?, and if there is movement, wheredo focused constituents move to?

Two widely accepted theories of focus movement are the ones advocatedby Brody (1990) and Horvath (1986,1995). In this section, I will discuss themajor aspects of both theories showing that they are not empirically adequate.

Brody (1990) argues that there is a Focus Phrase, where focused con-stituents move to in order to satisfy the focus-criterion, parallel to Rizzi’s(1991) wh-criterion:34

(17) Focus-criterion:

a. At S-structure and LF, the Spec of an FP must contain a +f-phrase.

b. At LF, all +f-phrases must be in an FP.

The source of cross-linguistic variation is then whether (17a) is satisfiedovertly (Hungarian) or covertly (English). As noted by Horvath (1995), thisapproach to focus is not satisfactory since it does not account for the factthat languages other than English and Hungarian codify focus in positionsthat are not either the base-position or the leftmost position of the sentence.

Horvath (1995) proposes that focus is either assigned like any other gram-matical feature (e.g. Case) by a non-lexical head or freely assigned. The needfor V-adjacency in Hungarian comes from the need to lexicalize the func-tional head that assigns the focus feature (which Horvath claims to be I° inHungarian). Her formulation of the focus parameter is given in (18). Theconditions in (133,1–4) determine what type of manifestation of focus canbe found in different languages:

(18) Focus parameter:

1. nature of the feature:(i) freely occurring, i.e. not vs. (ii) assigned by a specific X°transferred from another category (Hungarian)category (English)

2. what X° functional category of the clause is the assigner, i.e. thesource of the feature

3. whether the feature-assigning category needs to be lexicalized


4. the mode/nature of the process of feature-assignment:

(i) feature transfer(ii) Spec-head agreement

Horvath’s focus parameter has the advantage of accounting for crosslinguisticdifferences on the representation of focus without crucially resorting to anadditional functional projection, making the set of primitive categories ofthe theory simpler. However, relying on a specific functional projection forassigning of focus creates problems for cases in which focus surfaces in iso-lated constituents.

Let us consider the case of English. According to (18), focus in Englishis not codified in the syntax. Therefore, focus is freely assigned. However,as long as the English syntax becomes more flexible, alternations seem tobe able to codify different information structures:

(19) A: What did you give to Mary?

B: a. I gave Mary a book.b. #I gave a book to Mary.

(20) A: Who did you give a book to?

B: a. #I gave Mary a book.b. I gave a book to Mary.

If focus were freely assigned to any category, the contrast between (19) and(20) should not obtain. Any of the alternations should be adequate inde-pendently of the context.

One of the most widely accepted theories of focus-in-situ is Rooth’s(1985). Rooth proposes a semantic theory for focus, according to which nofocus-movement is required: given a sentence where focus can be identified,a set of alternatives is construed. The set of possible alternatives is con-strained within a certain contextual domain reminiscent of Jackendoff’s(1972) P(resupposition)-set.

Rooth (1985) accounts for Chomsky’s (1976) weak-cross-over independ-ently of focus-movement. Rooth claims that the bound variable readingsrequire λ-abstraction, so that the pronouns or noun phrases can be inter-preted as bound variables and not as free variables. A mechanism enablingthis to happen is already available in the grammar: Quantifier Raising (May1985). In other words, it is not necessary to have focus movement as an

Focus-movement? 77

independent rule of the grammar: like all NPs, focused NPs may be QR-edbut need not. However, if a bound variable reading is intended, QR is obliga-tory. In that case, LF-evaluation constraints are operative, and weak-cross-over configurations are ruled out. Rooth’s approach does not yet explainwhy deaccenting (that is, removing the stress from the focused constituent)obviates the WCO effects, but it is empirically superior to Chomsky’s sinceit excludes the obligatoriness of WCO with focus (see also Vallduví 1990for discussion).35

Adopting Rooth’s approach allows for dismissing the weak-cross-overargument as evidence in favor of focus-movement. At best, we can keep itas evidence for QR.

However, Rooth’s theory of interpretation of focus in situ does not sayanything concerning languages like Hungarian, in which focused constituentsmove to a specific position. Also, it does not explain the behavior of lan-guages like Portuguese, in which, as it will be shown, focused constituentsseem to stay very low in the structure.

Since Rooth’s analysis is not complete enough to take care of the wordorder facts, I will keep it as a semantic approach to focus. Syntax togetherwith prosody will enable an identification of the focus set of constituents fora given sentence. The identified focus-set will be operated on by semantics.Provided that there is an algorithm permitting a correct identification offocus, semantics may apply over the material identified as focus.

4.3. Word order and focus

Having established part of my assumptions concerning the representation offocus, let us look at the relationship between word order and focus, as far asthe placement of subjects is concerned. The first important aspect to note isthat the attested word order variation is not free: each word order can beused only in given contexts. This has been noted several times in literatureon Portuguese (Duarte 1987, 1996, 1997; Ambar 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997,Martins 1994; Costa 1997, 1998). For each of the possible word orders listedin (21), a different felicity context is associated. In (21), I also indicate theposition each constituent occupies in the clausal structure, according to theconclusions reached in the previous chapter.

(21) SVO: subject in Spec,IP, object in base-positionVSO: subject in Spec, VP, object in base-position


VOS: subject in Spec, VP, object adjoined to VP (via scrambling)OSV: subject in Spec,IP, object topicalizedOVS: subject in Spec, VP, object topicalized

The relation between each word order and context is demonstrated in thefollowing examples. I will proceed by providing an appropriate discoursecontext and check which possible order is an appropriate continuation foreach case. For the proper characterization of these contexts, the notions topicand focus will be relevant. I will assume the following tests to identify topicsand focus:

a) In a question-answer pair a focused constituent in the answer replacesthe wh-word in the question (cf. Dik 1978, Bresnan and Mchombo 1987,Rochemont and Culicover 1990, among others)

b) A Topic is information already referred to in the discourse or a subpart ofa referent already mentioned (see Büring 1997 for discussion and rele-vant examples).36

(22) Object focused:

A: O que é que o Paulo partiu?what Paulo broke

B: O Paulo partiu a janela.Paulo broke the window#Partiu o Paulo a janela.#Partiu a janela o Paulo.#A janela o Paulo partiu.#A janela partiu o Paulo.

(23) Sentence-focus:

A: O que é que aconteceu?what happened

B: O Paulo partiu a janela.Paulo broke the window#Partiu o Paulo a janela.#Partiu a janela o Paulo.#A janela o Paulo partiu.#A janela partiu o Paulo.

Word order and focus 79

(24) Subject and object focused:

A: Ninguém partiu nada.noone broke anything

B: #O Paulo partiu a janela.Paulo broke the windowPartiu o Paulo a janela.#Partiu a janela o Paulo.#A janela o Paulo partiu.#A janela partiu o Paulo.

(25) Subject is focused:A: Quem é que partiu a janela?

who broke the window

B: #O Paulo partiu a janela.Paulo broke the window#Partiu o Paulo a janela. Partiu (a janela) o Paulo.A janela o Paulo partiu.A janela partiu o Paulo.

I will not discuss in detail the cases in which the object appears in sentence-initial position. For the moment, it is enough to say that for objects to appearin sentence-initial position, they have to have been referred in previous dis-course and/or have some contrastive force:

(26) A: A Ana viu o Paulo?Ana saw Paulo

B: O Paulo, ela viu.Paulo she saw

(27) A: Quem é que partiu as janelas?who broke the windows

B: Esta janela partiu o Paulothis window broke Paulo.

Summarizing, in terms of information structure, all constituents that conveynew information appear to the right, and constituents that convey information


previously referred in the discourse appear at the left periphery of the sen-tence. The following question remains to be answered: why should theserelations between positions and discourse information exist? What doeseach of the identified syntactic positions have to do with the correspondentdiscourse function?

4.4. Mapping syntax-discourse

I will be assuming the following:

a) Old information has to be either topicalized or defocused, while newinformation is the Focus of a sentence;

b) I will follow proposals concerning the correlation between syntax andphonological sentence stress which suggest that sentential stress falls onthe rightmost constituent of a sentence. Thus, in a normal SVO sequence,stress will fall on the object. Assuming with Jackendoff (1972) that thefocused element in a sentence is the one bearing the most prominentstress, the proposals above capture the fact that in an SVO sentence withunmarked intonation the object is interpreted as the focus (cf. Lambrecht1994 who shows that objects tend to be focus).

Still concerning focus, I will follow Reinhart’s (1995) suggestion thatXPs may be marked as foci with a heavy stress. This happens to any XPthat does not get default stress by virtue of not being rightmost.37

c) I will assume with Zubizarreta (1995) and Reinhart (1995) that somesyntactic operations are prosodically motivated.

d) I will assume that the following tendencies hold, as observed by Lambrecht(1994): subjects tend to be topics; objects tend to be foci; definites tend tobe old information (topic); indefinites tend to be new information (focus).It is important to emphasize that these are just tendencies and not absolutestatements. Optimally, it would be possible to derive these tendencies fromsome structural property of subjects, objects, definites and indefinites.

Let us now come back to the issue under investigation and see how theseassumptions derive the facts described in the previous sections. From theline of inquiry I am pursuing, it is obvious that some new facts have to be

Mapping syntax-discourse 81

added to the paradigms described. More specifically, since the notion of focusis crucial, and I am assuming with Nespor and Vogel (1986), Cinque (1993),Zubizarreta (1998) and Reinhart (1995) that focus is partly a prosodic phe-nomenon,38 it now becomes important to see how subjects behave withrespect to intonation in each of the positions identified above.

It is a well-known fact that focus is normally associated with high stress.In order to get a clear idea of the correct way to interpret focus, it is necessaryto investigate where prominence appears in the sentences. By doing so, I willalso be able to derive the generalization of the preceding section.

Frota (1994,1995) has argued in favor of representing focus in Portugueseas a phonological category that is freely assigned. Part of her arguments isbased on the behavior of clitics (see Frota and Vigário 1996 for completeargumentation).

The domain of Frota’s argumentation is narrow (or contrastive) focus, andnot information focus (though of course, they may coincide). Actually, Frota(1997) suggests that two types of prominence may be necessary to describethe two types of focus marking. What is relevant for the discussion is thatindependently of the type of focus looked at, Frota’s claim appears to becorrect: focus (contrastive and information) is marked phonologically inPortuguese.

If the distribution of stress in each of the word orders discussed above isconsidered, evidence may be found in favor of Frota’s claim: there is a one-to-one correspondence between the first focused constituent of the sentenceand its most prominent stress.39

Consider (28) below, where capital letters indicate high stress:

(28) a. Partiu o PAULO a janela.broke Paulo the window

b. *PARTIU o Paulo a janela.

c. *Partiu o Paulo A JANELA.

(28) is a VSO sentence in which subject and object are in focus. In that case,both have to appear in the right periphery of the sentence. The subject is thefirst focus that appears and it bears the most prominent stress of the sentence.Conveying the same information by means of the same word order and withother stress patterns is not possible (28b,c).

In (29), only the subject is in focus (VOS). In that case, the subject bearsthe heaviest stress, though it is not heavier than the neutral stress present inunmarked SVO sentences.


(29) a. Comeu a sopa o Paulo.ate the soup Paulo

b. *Comeu a sopa o PAULO.

c. *Comeu a SOPA o Paulo.

d. *COMEU a sopa o Paulo.

In SVO sentences, the most natural intonation is the rightmost prominence,without a very heavy stress:

(30) O Paulo partiu a janela.Paulo broke the window

The literature on prosody often distinguishes between neutral stress andheavy stress (see e.g. Chomsky and Halle 1968). This distinction has beencriticized by Selkirk (1984), among others, who claims that there is no em-pirical advantage in proposing such a distinction. Selkirk’s argumentation isbased on focus projection. Focus projection is the term given to the fact thatneutral stress on e.g. a sentence-final object may yield an interpretation inwhich only the object is focused, or the VP is focused or the whole sentenceis focused. Selkirk claims that not only neutral sentence-final stress projectsallowing an interpretation in which there is focus on sentence-final elementonly, on the VP or on the whole sentence. Selkirk claims that heavy stress ina non-final constituent also permits focus-projection in the sense justexplained. If Selkirk’s observations are applied to the Portuguese case, it isexpected that sentence (30) be an appropriate answer to any of the questionsin (31):

(31) a. What happened? (Sentence-focus)

b. What did Paulo do? (VP-focus)

c. What did Paulo break? (Object-focus)

This is indeed correct. However, differently from Selkirk’s claim for English,a distinction between neutral stress and marked stress is relevant for theidentification of focus in Portuguese. Crucially, every time there is a highstress on a non-final constituent, there is no projection of focus in this lan-guage. (30) is not a legitimate sentence for expressing VP-focus. Since highstress is only necessary on constituents that are not in absolute sentence-


final position, this invalidates Selkirk’s claim: marked stress does notproject.

(32) Partiu O PAULO a janela.broke Paulo the window

Selkirk claims that stress on XP, which is a constituent of YP, will enablepercolation of stress to YP. If focus projection would apply in these terms,(32) could be a felicitous answer to (31b), with focus on the whole VP,since the subject is VP-internal. In other words, the subject corresponds toXP and the VP to YP in Selkirk’s algorithm. Hence, stress on the subjectshould project to VP. Now, this is not true, though it is predicted by Selkirk’stheory.

Note that even neutral stress does not project if there is a change in theunmarked word order of the language. Hence, a VOS sentence is not a legiti-mate answer to a question that requires something else than the subject tobe in focus:

(33) What did Paulo do?

a. O Paulo partiu a janela.Paulo broke the window

b. #Partiu a janela o Paulo.

Although the sentence’s main stress fall on the rightmost constituent in bothcases, and in both cases the rightmost constituent is VP-internal, focus pro-jection is not allowed.

Actually, even the English cases Selkirk presents as possible cases offocus-projection without rightmost prominence are difficult to evaluate.Selkirk claims that (34) may have VP-focus:

(34) (from Selkirk 1984):Did John give a BOOK to Bill?

Selkirk claims that (35) is an appropriate answer for this sentence:

(35) No, he grew a pot of NARCISSUS for him.

In (35), the verb and the NP contrast with give a book in (36). Selkirk con-cludes from this that prominence on the NP may give VP focus.40 It seems,


though, that this is not a very accurate conclusion, since if there were VP-focus in (36), the sentences in (36) might as well be appropriate answers,since (36a) and (36b) involve alternatives to the focused VP:

(36) a. No, he grew a pot of NARCISSUS for Mary.

b. No, he killed Mary.

Now, (36a,b) are not appropriate answers to (34), presumably because in(35) there is no VP-focus. Actually, Selkirk acknowledges that for (35) toinvolve VP-focus, “John, Bill, and, say, Bill’s recent birthday are old infor-mation in the discourse”(p.216, my emphasis). If Bill is old information, itis difficult to understand how it can be maintained that the whole VP is infocus. In other words, I am suggesting that the idea that VP-focus is in-volved comes from the fact that grow X for Y and give X to Y are minimallydifferent in the relevant context. No new information is added by replacinggive with grow. In this sense, the only new information is the NP, and VP-focus is only apparent. The use of a proper name in the question may alsodetermine the impression that there might be VP-focus even without Billbeing focused. Proper names never convey absolute new information. Ifinstead of a definite, someone is used, a VP-focus interpretation never arisesunless there is rightward prominence:

(37) A: What did John do?

B: #John gave a BOOK to someone.John gave a book to someone.

Speakers who accept (37B) report to me that the DP a book clearly musthave contrastive force. We have thus a case of overlap of two types offocus: a contrastive focus on the DP and information focus on the VP. Sincethese two types of focus may be distinguished in semantic terms, the behav-ior of one should not be used as evidence for the other.

Summarizing, it is thus possible to interpret the stress pattern of (35) indifferent terms: since the pronoun is old information (it refers to Bill), itmust not be heavily stressed. In the context given, grew a pot of narcissusfor him and give a pot of narcissus to him are equivalent. Hence, the onlynew information which is contrasted is the DP object. The stress patternemerges as a consequence of shifting the stress from the sentence-final PPto the object DP. The VP-focus effects arise only if the identity between


grow X for Y and give X to Y in the ‘birthday’-context are not acknowledged.The fact that not any VP may replace the one in the question confirms that inthis case there is no VP-focus.

It seems thus that whenever there is a change either in the unmarked wordorder (SVO for Portuguese) or in the normal intonational pattern (rightmostprominence), there is no projection of focus.

The intonation of information focus in Portuguese can then be summa-rized as follows: Focused constituents are prosodically prominent. If theyare rightmost they bear neutral stress, if they are not rightmost they areassigned a high pitch accent. If there is more than one focus, the leftmostbears the heavy stress: all constituents following the heavy stress are inter-preted as focus. Information focus is not incompatible with other types ofcontrast. Hence, any constituent may bear heavy stress, independently of itsbeing the focus of the sentence for contrast purposes. This will, however,make projection of focus more difficult for the reasons pointed out above.

Under the review of Selkirk’s discussion of projection of focus madeabove, I reach conclusions similar to hers regarding the status of projection asnot being exceptional, although in the exact opposite sense. She concludedthat focus-projection is not exceptional, since it may happen almost every-where. Differently, I concluded that focus-projection is unexceptional, sinceit does not need to be postulated. The reasoning goes as follows: all that isneeded is rightmost prominence. The effects of projection are a consequenceof coincidence of rightmost borders of constituents (NP,VP,IP). Any otherstress pattern will preclude projection, since projection does not exist as anindependent phenomenon. It is just the effect of the ambiguity of severalrightward constituent borders.

Combining the distribution of focus and the prosodic facts, the followinggeneralizations are obtained:

a) Focused constituents are rightmost in the sentence;

b) Focused elements bear high stress (neutral or marked);

c) If there are multiple foci, they appear all to the right of the non-foci ele-ments.

d) If there are multiple foci, the first in a left-to-right fashion bears heavystress.

These observations may serve as the cues to the formulation of an algorithmto identify information focus in European Portuguese, which is given in (38).


Note that (38) is meant as an algorithm to identify information focus, notthe other types of focus, excluding thus the cleft constructions discussedabove, which were nevertheless useful for the study of focus projection.This formulation is partially based on Reinhart’s (1995) observations con-cerning the distribution of focus and on her own formulation of what afocus-set of constituents is:

(38) The focus set of constituents of a sentence is the prosodically mostprominent constituent plus everything it c-commands.

Prosodic prominence is defined as in (39), adapted from Nespor and Vogel(1986), Cinque (1993), Zubizarreta (1995) and Nash (1995):

(39) The prosodically unmarked most prominent constituent is the right-most one, following the recursion pattern of a language.

(39) states that in VO languages, the most prominent constituent is therightmost one to the right of the verb, while in OV languages, the mostprominent constituent is the rightmost to the left of the verb (the XP in boldin (40) below):

(40) V O XP XPO XP XP V

Let me now return to the algorithm presented above. When the conditionsfor a constituent which has to be interpreted as focus to receive the sentence(neutral) most prominent stress are not met, a heavy stress has to be assigned.This happens e.g. in the case of multiple foci, in which two constituents can-not occupy the rightmost position at the same time. Let us see how the algo-rithm in (39) allows for identifying focus in the cases discussed above. Inthe case of a VSO sentence with high stress on the subject, the set of focusedconstituents will be the subject and the object. The subject is interpreted asfocus, because it is the most prominent constituent. The object is interpretedas focus, because it is c-commanded by the subject. Since the verb is out ofthe c-command domain of the subject, it is not interpreted as focus.

In the case of VOS sentences, the subject bears the main neutral stress anddoes not c-command anything, hence it is the only constituent interpreted asfocus. The focus on the subject may not project, because the unmarked wordorder is changed. The impossibility for rightmost focus to project when


there are changes at the unmarked word order will not follow from any con-siderations in this chapter. A solution for this problem will be proposed later.

As for SVO, two situations are possible: the most natural is that theobject is the rightmost element, bearing sentence neutral stress. In that case,since it does not c-command anything, only the object is interpreted as newinformation. The other two possibilities are interpretation of these sentencesas VP-focus and everything in focus. These interpretations also follow fromthe algorithm in (39), since the object is also the rightmost part of the con-stituent IP or VP that one wants to focus in cases of sentence-focus and VP-focus respectively. Focus projection is thus interpreted here as a naturalconsequence of the general neutral stress rule: assign the most prominentstress to the rightmost element. This rule is general to any constituent, inde-pendently of its label, as observed by Cinque (1993) among others41:

(41) a. [NP the good man with the red shirt]

b. [AP much more beautiful]

c. [PP before midnight]

d. [VP give something to someone]

e. [IP John gave a book to Mary]

Now, why is focus projection impossible in a VSO sentence? The explanationis simple: since the subject is the most prominent constituent, it cannot be thecase that the whole sentence is in focus, since the stress does not fall on itsrightmost element (see also Cinque 1993 and Reinhart 1995 for a similarreasoning).

Should it be possible then that stress on a sentence-final subject wouldyield sentence-focus? In principle, nothing precludes it, since the subject isboth the rightmost element and the most prominent one. There is however areason for excluding this possibility: if one compares a VOS sentence witha SVO sentence, they are equal in terms of prosody. However, the former ismore marked, since the subject does not appear in its canonical position:Spec,IP. Hence, since there is no difference in status in terms of possibleinterpretations, the least marked SVO sentence is grammatical.42

Let us now see why some sentences are impossible when associated tosome interpretations, and how that follows from the algorithm in (39). Whycan’t a VSO sentence be interpreted with focus on the subject only? That is,why is (42B) not a felicitous answer to (42A):


(42) A: Who broke the window?

B: #Partiu o PAULO a janela.broke Paulo the window

The problem with this answer is that it forces the object to be interpreted asnew information, since it is within the c-command domain of the subjectwhich bears the most prominent stress. Since window has been referred to inthe discourse, this interpretation is not felicitous.

Another case excluded by the algorithm in (38) is the interpretation for aVSO sentence in which the subject is not stressed:

(43) *Partiu o Paulo a JANELA.broke Paulo the window

The problem with this sentence is that, according to the definitions in (39),only the object can be interpreted as focus. Now, if that is the case, the sen-tence is ruled out for either of the two following reasons: if the subject is tobe interpreted as new information, the sentence is out since the subject isnot included in the focus set of constituents. This is because the subject isnot c-commanded by the most prominent constituent. Alternatively, if theinterpretation required is one in which the subject is not to be interpreted asfocus, and then there is no reason for it to stay in a low position.43 Also,heavy stress should never appear in sentence-final position, unless for con-trast purposes, since it is not necessary in order to assign prominence to aconstituent.

It seems thus that the principles given above make a large number of cor-rect predictions, concerning the possible intonations and mappings betweenword orders, intonations and discourse functions.

Summarizing the results of this section, I present the following table,containing the several possible word orders with most prominent elementmarked in bold. The second column of the table indicates the focus set ofconstituents given by each word order, and the third column indicates thereason why some pairs word order/intonation and word order/focus-set areimpossible:


Table 1.

Table 1 illustrates the relevance of two aspects for the identification of focus:stress assignment and c-command by the most prominent element.

It is important to note at this stage that the algorithm in (39) just representsthe instructions hearers have to follow in order to identify the focus of asentence. As such, these principles are quite descriptive in nature. They areexplanatory only to the extent that they follow from independent principles:


Word Order Focus-set Reason for ungrammaticality

SVO O, VP or IP

VSO S and O

VOS S

*SVO S S is not c-commanded by the mostprominent element

*SVO S V and O are c-commanded by themost prominent element; theyshould be part of the focus-set

*SVO IP The sequence with unmarkedstress blocks the more marked one

*VSO IP Stress is not in the rightmostconstituent of IP

*VSO IP SVO is preferable, since the wordorder is less marked (cf. Costa1998, and section 3.4)

*VSO O Stress falls on the subject

*VSO O Since the subject is not in focus,there is no reason for it to stay low

*VOS VP, IP SVO is preferable, since the wordorder is less marked (cf. 3.4)

*VOS S and O O has been scrambled for escapingfocus, so it may not be the focus.

in order to get to (39), it is necessary to have a theory of phrasal phonologywhich relates sentence stress assignment to the directionality parameter(Nash 1995; Nespor, Guasti and Cristophe 1995). In addition, a theory ofsentence structure making sure the c-command requirement is met in therelevant configurations is required. Finally, there has to be an independentexplanation for the part of the principles that require focus to be prosodicallyprominent (see Givón 1984 for an explanation in terms of attention span). Itis a combination of these three aspects that makes it possible to arrive at aformulation of an algorithm for sentence stress identification.

4.5. No focus-movement in Portuguese

Concerning the debate focus-in-situ vs. focus-movement, from the Portu-guese data discussed above, one may conclude that several rearrangementsof the sentence word order must be made for the sake of identifying focus,although there is not one specific position where focused elements move toon the left periphery of the sentence, as is the case in Hungarian. Instead,focused elements seem to stay in the rightmost position, and in most casesthey do not undergo any movement in order to reach this position. Giventhis behavior, the conclusion obtains that Portuguese is not of the Hungariantype, and it can be treated as a language with focus in situ.44 In Costa (1998,2000b), empirical arguments are presented showing that a focus-movementapproach would make wrong predictions for dealing with these data.

For completeness, let me just point out that the syntactically markedfocus constructions that are found in Portuguese, described by Raposo(1994), among others, involve quantified DPs, and is exemplified in (44)(Raposo, p.c.):

(44) Muito vinho o João bebeu!Much wine João drank

This type of construction is much more natural if the sentence is exclamative,which casts some doubt on their status as instances of focus-movement.

Comparing this construction with the Italian case, they appear to be alike.Naturally, not all properties may be checked, since the construction is possi-ble only with quantified DPs:

i) As far as combination with clitics is concerned, the preposed quantifiedDP may not be doubled:

No focus-movement in Portuguese 91

(45) a. Portuguese:

Muito vinho, o João (*o) bebeu(*-o)!Much wine, João it drank it

b. Italian:

IL TUO LIBRO, (*lo) ho compratoyour book, it have-I bought

ii) There may only be one quantified DP in this preposing construction:

(46) Portuguese:

a. Muitas vezes o João bebeu vinho!Many times João drank wine

b. Muito vinho o João bebeu muitas vezes.Much wine João drank many times

c. *Muitas vezes, muito vinho bebeu.Many times much wine drank

Italian:

d. *IL LIBRO, A GIANNI, darò.the book to Gianni, (I-will-)give

(46c) shows that two quantified DPs may not be preposed. This sentence isonly acceptable if the first preposed element is interpreted as a topic. Underthe exclamative interpretation that these preposed DPs receive (see below),the sentence is ungrammatical.

iii)Preposed quantified DPs in the relevant interpretation are incompatiblewith wh-elements:

(47) Portuguese:

a. *Muito vinho, com quem é que o João bebeu?Much wine, with whom João drank

b. *Com quem, muito vinho o João bebeu?With whom much wine João drank

Italian:

c. *A GIANNI, che cosa hai detto?to Gianni, what did you tell


Again, (47a) is only possible under the topic interpretation for the DP muitovinho. With the exclamative interpretation, the sentence is ungrammatical. Thisis not surprising, since preposing is more natural in exclamative sentences,and a sentence may not be simultaneously interrogative and exclamative.

Given the similarity of behavior with the Italian construction, when com-paring in-situ with moved foci, I will use quantified DPs to be sure that weare looking at syntactically marked foci.

The two types of constructions can be fruitfully compared contrasting thefunction of preposing and focus-in-situ respectively (see also Raposo 1994;Duarte 1987; Casielles 1996). It will be argued that for a constituent to be pre-posed, it has to yield given information, even in the constructions involvingquantified DPs only.

I have been considering throughout this chapter that the focus that appearsin situ is used to introduce new information; hence it is felicitous as an answerto a wh-question:

(48) A: Quem é que o Paulo viu?who did Paulo see

B: O Paulo viu muita gente.Paulo saw many people

Now, if the difference between preposing and focus-in-situ is just a differ-ence in terms of the locus of application of the operation focus-movementin the derivational history of the sentence, both cases are expected to yield afelicitous answer to a wh-question. However, that is not true, as the inappro-priateness of (49) attests:45

(49) A: Quem é que o Paulo viu?who did Paulo see

B: #Muita gente, o Paulo viu.many people, Paulo saw

Note that the facts in (48) and (49) are true for any type of preposing. If weprepose a PP, the same effects obtain:

(50) A: Com quem é que o Paulo falou?With whom Paulo talked

B: O Paulo falou com {a Maria/muita gente}Paulo talked with Maria / many people


(51) A: Com quem é que o Paulo falou?With whom Paulo talked

B: #Com {a Maria/muita gente} o Paulo falouWith Maria /many people Paulo talked

What is then a felicitous context for preposing? Consider the followingfragments of discourse, in which preposing is felicitous.

As mentioned before, preposing is possible if the preposed constituent isgiven in the discourse (or in the context). These are cases in which preposingis undistinguishable from topicalization. (52) and (53) exemplify such cases:

(52) A: Quem é que comeu muita sopa?who ate much soup

B: MUITA SOPA, ninguém comeu, (muito pão comeu o Paulo).much soup noone ate (much bread Paulo ate)

(53) A: Alguém leu o teu livro?someone read your book

B: O MEU LIVRO, o Paulo leu (não o teu).my book Paulo read (not yours)

Another context for preposing (now for the case considered in Raposo’swork cited above) is exclamative sentences:

(54) Muito vinho o Paulo bebeu!Much wine Paulo drank

(55) Muita gente tu encontraste!Many people you met

In these cases there is no implicit contrast with anything else. Note howeverthat, even in an exclamative answer to a question, this word order is not licit ifthe quantified DP is new information (the information focus of the sentence).The relevant contrasts are given in (56) and (57):

(56) A: O que é que o Paulo bebeu?What Paulo drank

B: a. O Paulo bebeu muito vinho!Paulo drank much wine

b. #Muito vinho o Paulo bebeu!Much wine Paulo bebeu


(57) A: Quem chegou?Who arrived

B: a. Chegou muita gente!Arrived many people

b. #Muita gente chegou!Many people arrived

A rather convincing confirmation of the exclamative force of the sentencesdiscussed in Raposo’s work was brought to my attention by Inês Duarte: itis impossible to add a question tag to a sentence with a preposed quantifiedDP, which shows that the sentence may not be interpreted as declarative:

(58) Muito vinho bebeu o João, (*não bebeu?)much wine drank João, not drank

It is thus possible to conclude that the focus-preposing construction maynot serve to introduce new information. It is possible to obtain this wordorder if the quantified DP may be deduced from the context.

(59) A: A festa foi óptima!The party was great

B: Muito vinho o Paulo bebeu!

As the examples above show, in a felicitous context for preposing, the con-stituent that is in the left periphery of the sentence has to have been pre-viously referred to in the discourse or be deduced from the context. More-over, it never introduces new information. Rather, it contrasts some piece ofold information with something else. If preposing would convey new infor-mation, it might be used for answering questions. As shown above, this isnot true. As also mentioned in work by Inês Duarte (Duarte 1987, 1996),anytime there is preposing of a constituent in Portuguese, the informationconveyed by that constituent is given (independently of whether it is furthercontrastive or topical). Actually, the part that answers the question cannever be fronted as (60) and (61) illustrate, independently of whether theconstituent conveying new information is contrasted to another one or not:

(60) A: Quem é que viste ontem?who did you see yesterday

B: ONTEM vi [muita gente]F, (hoje pouca)yesterday I saw many people, (today few)


An answer in which the focus is fronted and the contrasted temporal adverbis left in situ is simply infelicitous:

(61) A: Quem é que viste ontem?who did you see yesterday

B: #[Muita gente]F vi ontem.Many people I saw yesterday

This is true even if the focus of the sentence (i.e. the part that replaces thewh-phrase) is itself contrasted:

(62) A: O que é que puseste na prateleira?What did you put on the shelf

B: #[MUITA COISA]F pus na prateleira, [POUCA COISA]F, na cadeiraMany things I put on the shelf, few things on the chair

A felicitous answer for this question would involve preposing the PP:

(63) B: NA PRATELEIRA, pus [muita coisa]F, NA CADEIRA [pouca coisa]F

on the shelf I put many things, on the chair few things

It seems thus, that in spite of the need to be contrasted, a constituent thatconstitutes absolutely new information can never appear in fronted position.On the other hand, topics may be contrasted. This conclusion suggests thattaking the constructions of preposing as the overt counterpart of focus in situis erroneous, and that the label focus-preposing is often used without lookingat the specific properties of the language involved and at the contexts inwhich each construction may be used, as also pointed out by Büring (1997).

For the case of Portuguese, the so-called focus-preposing construction isrestricted to quantified DPs, and even in those cases, it is not an alternativeto focus-in-situ, since the discourse function is different. Hence the con-struction involving preposing must not be taken as an argument for focus-movement.46

Summing up, it was shown in the previous sections that, for a subject tooccur postverbally in its base position, it must be focused. This observationsupports the view that interface conditions play a role in determining thepotential surface positions of subjects. The remaining question is how thein-situ subjects are licensed. This is the topic of the next section.


4.6. Phases, locality and subjects in Spec, VP

Following recent work by Chomsky (1998, 2000), it is legitimate to supposethat the Case-features of the head attracting the subject may be licensedunder two mechanisms: Move or Agree. If the former is chosen, the subjectis attracted to Spec,IP. If the latter option is at stake, the subject stays in itsbase-position, and Case-features are licensed under Agree. Note that, as pro-posed above, if the subject is in Spec, VP, Spec,IP is empty:

(64) a. [IP S [CASE] I[CASE] [VP t t

b. [IP I[CASE] [VP S [CASE] t

At first sight, this gives rise to optionality: there are two converging deriva-tions for licensing subjects. Assuming with Adger (1994), that the choicebetween two converging outputs is made post-syntactically, taking intoaccout the information structure of the clause, this is a desirable result. Givena pair of converging outputs SVO and VSO, the latter will only be picked ifthe subject is focused.47

If Agree is the relevant mechanism for licensing in-situ subjects, it is pre-dicted that locality effects should arise.48 This prediction is borne out. As thefollowing data show, an inverted subject may occur within a non-finiteclause:

(65) a. Decidiram ler todos os alunos esse livro.Decided-3pl read all the students that book

b. Querem ler todos os alunos esse livro.Want-3pl read all the students that book

The surprising aspect of the examples in (65) is that the empty subject ofthe matrix verb is correferential with the subject of the non-finite verb, andyet no principle-C effects arise. This follows from the proposal that Spec,IPis empty in inversion contexts.49 It must be noted that this type of in-situsubject within an infinitival clause is restricted: it only happens if the matrixverbs do not select a CP. Let us consider clitic-climbing, as in (66), or weak-adverb climbing50, as in (67), as a signal that the complement of the matrixverb is defective. The contrasts in the examples below between finite andnon-finite complements show that these two phenomena are dependent onthe absence of a CP-node (cf. Gonçalves 1999, among many others):

Phases, locality and subjects in Spec, VP 97

(66) a. Eu só o quero ler amanhã.I only it-acc want read tomorrow“I only want to read it tomorrow”

b. *Eu só o quero que leias amanhã.I only it-acc want that (you) read tomorrow“I only want that you read it tomorrow”

c. Eu só quero que o leias amanhã.I only want that (you) it- acc read tomorrow“I only want that you read it tomorrow”

(67) a. Eu só lá decidi ir ontem.I only there decided go yesterday“I only decided to go there yesterday.”

b. *Eu só lá decidi que ia ontem.I only there decided that (I) would-go yesterday“I only decided that I would go there yesterday”

c. Eu só decidi que ia lá ontem.I only decided that (I) would-go there yesterday“I only decided that I would go there yesterday”

Accordingly, if there is no evidence for the absence of CP, either becausethe matrix verb is not a restructuring verb, or if an embedded negation isinserted blocking restructuring, or because there is no independent evidencefor any type of transparency relation between the matrix verb and the em-bedded complement (independently of restructuring), the sentences becomeungrammatical, contrasting with their non-inverted counterparts:

(68) Embedded negation:

a. ??Decidiram não ler todos os alunos esse livro.Decided-3pl read all the students that book

b. Todos os alunos decidiram não ler esse livro.All the students decided not to read that book

(69) Non-restructuring verbs (projecting CP):

a. *Recusaram ler todos os alunos esse livro.Refused-3pl read all the students that book


b. Todos os alunos recusaram ler esse livro.All the students refused to read that book

c. *Negaram ler todos os alunos esse livro.Denied to read all the students that book

d. Todos alunos negaram ler esse livro.All the students denied to read that book

These data provide the necessary evidence for assuming that Agree is atstake. Assuming with Chomsky (1998, 2000) that the scope of Agree is thestrong phase, and accepting the standard view that not all non-finite com-plements project CP (Boskovic 1997), these data follow. For instances, in therestructuring contexts, CP is not projected, there is no strong phase boundary,and Agree may operate.

A consequence of the present proposal is that in VSO contexts, there isno strong phase boundary intervening between T and Spec,VP. In otherwords, it must be assumed that either vP does not exist in European Portu-guese, or it is a weak phase. In Costa (1998), following claims on the non-universality of functional categories (e.g. Bobaljik and Thrainssón 1996), itis suggested that AgrO does not project in languages in which scrambledobjects behave like adjuncts. If v is taken as the category providing thelanding site for objects in Object-shift languages, the assumption that AgrOdoes not project may be adapted to v. If this is the case, there is indeed nostrong phase boundary between T and Spec,VP, and Agree may take place.

Alternatively, it is legitimate to assume that the subject is generated inSpec,vP, and the results achieved for inverted subjects may be translated,assuming that inverted subjects are stranded in the specifier of VP. In thatcase, the relevant configurations are:

(70) a. [IP S [CASE] I[CASE] [vP t t

b. [IP I[CASE] [vP S [CASE] t

Since the subject is at the edge of the strong phase (vP), Agree can probethis position and the licensing of the relevant features takes place.

Phases, locality and subjects in Spec, VP 99

4.7. Related evidence: agreement in copular constructions

Before concluding, let us consider a set of data involving rightward agree-ment, which may provide additional evidence for the proposal made abovethat subjects in-situ are licensed under Agree. The data to be consideredcomes from inverted copular constructions, in which the verb agrees to theright. We will add data from Brazilian Portuguese, since this language differsfrom European Portuguese in two interesting ways: first, it does not havesubject-verb inversion of the type discussed above (cf. Figueiredo Silva 1996,among others);51 second, it does not have clitic climbing (cf. Duarte andGonçalves 2000, among others). These two differences and the agreementfacts will permit checking whether there is any correlation between locality,agreement and the possibility for subjects to occur in a postverbal position.

Let us then consider the facts. Both in Brazilian and in European Portu-guese, in specificational sentences, the verb agrees to the right, if there is apronominal form on the right, as shown in (71):

(71) O assassino sou eu.The murderer am I

If the pronominal form is to the left of the verb, the verb agrees to the left, asin (72):

(72) Eu sou o assassino.I am the murderer

The interesting difference between the two languages emerges when there isa modal verb involved. If the specificational sentence occurs with a modalverb, the same agreement pattern is reproduced in European Portuguese.The modal verb agrees with the pronominal form to its right.

European Portuguese:

(73) a. O assassino devo ser eu.the murderer must-1sg be I

b. O assassino posso ser eu.the murderer may-1sg be I

In Brazilian Portuguese, however, the agreement pattern with modal verbsis different. If the specificational sentence contains a modal, the modal verbagrees with the preverbal element:


Brazilian Portuguese:

(74) a. O assassino deve ser eu.the murderer must-3sg be I

b. O assassino pode ser eu.the murderer may-3sg be I

Note that, in (74), Brazilian Portuguese is behaving like English in normalspecificational sentences in not allowing agreement to the right:

(75) a. The murderer is me.

b. *The murderer am I.

These agreement patterns raise the following questions:

i) What is the difference between Brazilian and European Portuguese modalverbs underlying the differences between the agreement pattern in thetwo languages?

ii) What underlies the difference between Brazilian Portuguese and Englishsimple cases, making agreement to the right possible only in the formerlanguage?

We assume that the agreement pattern found in specificational sentences isthe result of there being inversion (cf. Tavares (in preparation)). Let us fur-ther assume that the subject does not reach Spec,IP in this type of inversion,as illustrated in (76), and remain agnostic as far as the target of the frontedpredicate is:52

(76) [XP O assassino [I’ sou [vP eu

In this sense, the structure in (76) is similar to other cases of predicateinversion, as in (77):

(77) Inteligente sou eu.clever am I

The assumption that the case in which there is agreement to the right is a(special) case of subject-verb inversion implies assuming an analysis similar

Related evidence: agreement in copular constructions 101

to the one proposed above for other cases of subject-verb inversion. In otherwords, extending the analysis proposed in the previous section to thesestructures, one can assume that the inverted subject eu in (76) is licensedunder Agree.

This assumption straightforwardly explains why there is agreement tothe right in Portuguese, German or Icelandic, but not in English (Tony Kroch,p.c.). Only in the latter is there no subject-verb inversion, which blocks thepossibility of tracing rightward agreement as an effect of subject-verb inver-sion. In our terms, English does not allow for any subject to be licensedunder Agree, which has reflexes on the lack of agreement to the right. Theoption of licensing subjects to the right under Agree is restricted in BrazilianPortuguese to some verb classes.

Let us now come back to the difference between the two varieties of Por-tuguese. As illustrated above, in European Portuguese, a modal verb agreesto the right with the subject embedded in the infinitival construction, whichis not true for Brazilian Portuguese. These agreement facts with modalsmay be shown to follow from locality and the presence or absence of CP ina way similar to the one outlined in the previous section.

As shown in (78), modal verbs in European Portuguese are restructuringverbs (Gonçalves 1999), allowing clitic climbing:

(78) Eu não lhe devo dar o livro.I not him must give the book

“I must not give him the book”

Unlike in European Portuguese, restructuring is not productive in BrazilianPortuguese. A well known fact about the latter is that it does not permit cliticclimbing (cf. Duarte and Gonçalves 2000):

(79) Brazilian Portuguese:

a. Eu não devo lhe dar o livro.I not must him give the book

b. *Eu não lhe devo dar o livro.I not him must give the book

This difference in the behavior of modal verbs in the two languages gives usthe ingredients for understanding the agreement patterns. If in (73) there isrestructuring, the modal and the main verb work as a single phase domain,


since CP is not projected. Because there is no phase-boundary between thematrix Infl and the subject, the latter is licensed under Agree. The agreementpattern is therefore expected: we find no difference between the constructionin (73) and the constructions in which there is subject-verb inversion withina non-finite clause.

Now, let us consider the case of Brazilian Portuguese. If Brazilian Portu-guese modal verbs do not restructure, as shown in (75), a locality constraintmakes it impossible to derive the configuration with agreement to the right.The reason for a non-restructuring context to block agreement to the rightfollows from the proposal made in the preceding section. CP is projected,inducing a phase-boundary, and blocking the Agree relation between thematrix Infl and the embedded subject.53

An obvious difference in terms of results must be pointed out. A failureto establish Agree induced ungrammaticality in European Portuguese, whileit induces a failure in morphological agreement in Brazilian Portuguese. Ido not have a solution to this problem. It may be the case that the embeddedSpec,TP plays a role in licensing the embedded subject. Negation is assumedto be associated to TP in Romance languages (Zanuttini 1996). It may there-fore be taken as a diagnostic to know whether Spec,TP is projected. As shownin (80), for European Portuguese, the presence of an embedded negationblocks restructuring, since it makes clitic climbing impossible. The data in(80a,b) show that there is no problem with having a negation embeddedunder the modal. The sentences in (80c,d) show that clitics can not climb inthe presence of the embedded negation:

(80) a. Eu não devo ver o PedroI not must see Pedro

b. Eu devo não ver o Pedro.I must not see Pedro

c. Eu devo não o ver.I must not him see

d. *Eu devo-o não ver.I must him not see

Combining these facts with the analysis of agreement to the right, it is pre-dicted that the latter should not occur in Brazilian Portuguese. In this lan-guage, there is no restructuring, thus, moving the predicate to Spec,IP abovethe modal will violate locality, since there is another Spec,IP closer to it.

Related evidence: agreement in copular constructions 103

This is, however, not a satisfactory answer to the problem, since it predictsthat the embedded subject should be licensed by the embedded Spec,TP. Iwill therefore leave the issue of how the subject in Brazilian Portuguese islicensed for further research.

Interestingly, evidence for this analysis may be found internally toEuropean Portuguese. If a verb forces the projection of CP, agreement to theright is never possible. This is the case with the modal verb necessitar ‘toneed’. The contrast in (81) shows that this verb does not allow clitic climbing;the data in (82) shows the agreement pattern in the specificational context:

(81) a. Eu só necessito de lhe dar-lhe um livro.I just need to him give a book

b. *Eu só lhe necessito de dar um livro.I just him need to give a book“I just need to give him a book”.

(82) a. *O problema necessito de ser eu.The problem need-1sg to be I

b. ?O problema necessita de ser eu.The problem needs to be I“I must be the problem”.

The sentence in (82b) patterns like the Brazilian Portuguese cases discussedabove. This confirms that the projection of CP is the crucial factor to knowwhether an embedded subject can be licensed to the right, under Agree.Incidentally, note that (82b) is not ungrammatical, but just marginal, whichallows us to get back to the issue raised above for Brazilian Portuguese:how is the embedded subject licensed in sentences like (82b)? The fact thatthe question may be raised for European Portuguese as well, and the con-trast between (82b) and the sentences discussed in the previous section inwhich the subject occurs after a non-finite verb embedded under a controlpredicate allows for conjecturing that the problem has to do with the pres-ence of the copula rather than with the failure to Agree. In other words, thepresence of the copula be seems to enable an additional last resort way oflicensing the inverted subject. Obviously, this must be a last resort strategy,since it would otherwise rescue all ungrammatical cases discussed above.

Summing up this section, although some issues remain open, its purposewas to show that there is independent evidence for the claim that the presence


of a CP-node induces a boundary for licensing an inverted subject underAgree. The contrast between European and Brazilian Portuguese and itsrelation with the availability of restructuring with modal verbs in the twolanguages provides the necessary evidence for relating inversion with theamount of projected structure. The special feature of the data discussed inthis section is that we see a correlation between morphological agreement andthe cases in which the inverted subject is licensed by the matrix Infl. In thecases discussed, failure to Agree corresponds to a failure to morphologicallyagree.

4.8. Conclusions

This chapter provided evidence for the possibility of subjects to surface inSpec,VP. It was defended that this occurs when subjects are focused, incompliance with requirements imposed by the mapping with prosody. Itwas further shown that the possibility for subjects to emerge in Spec,VP isprimarily conditioned by syntax: it reflects the possibility of checking Case-features under Move or Agree.

Conclusions 105

5. Optionality and left-dislocated subjects:semantic and discourse properties

In chapters 2, 3 and 4, it was observed that there is a correlation between thedistribution of information focus and the placement of subjects in EuropeanPortuguese. In particular, the following two generalizations arose: (i) infor-mation focus surfaces at the clause’s rightmost position; (ii) for each context,there is only one word order.

The discussion in chapter 2 led to the conclusion that preverbal subjectsin European Portuguese occupy an A-position. Yet, as mentioned, nothingprecludes left-dislocation of a subject, in the same way nothing precludesleft-dislocation of an object. However, nothing was said concerning contextsfavoring subject left-dislocation.

This chapter examines two contexts challenging the generalization thatfor each context there is only one order: unaccusative contexts and answersto multiple wh-questions. The latter will turn out to provide a context inwhich subjects may be left-dislocated.

5.1. SV and VS in unaccusative contexts

As mentioned in chapter 3, one of the criteria used for determining the un-marked word order of a language is to look at contexts of sentence-focus,which may be tested in answers to what happened?. In this context, the onlyfelicitous word order in Portuguese is SVO. This is illustrated in (1) fortransitive verbs. All other word orders are unfelicitous in this context:

(1) What happened?

a. O Paulo comeu o bolo.Paulo ate the cake

b. #Comeu o Paulo o bolo.

c. #Comeu o bolo o Paulo.

d. #O Paulo o bolo comeu

e. #O bolo o Paulo comeu.

f. #O bolo comeu o Paulo.

If the verb is intransitive, the only felicitous answer to what happened? is theorder SV. This is illustrated in (2):

(2) What happened?

a. O Paulo cantou.Paulo sang

b. #Cantou o Paulo

The first problem raised by the behavior of subjects of unaccusatives has todo with their behavior in sentence-focus contexts. The analysis presented inthe preceding chapters makes the prediction that subjects move to Spec,IP inunmarked contexts independently of the verb they appear with. This predic-tion was confirmed for transitives and intransitives. The same should be truefor unaccusatives. The complement of an unaccusative verb should alwaysraise to Spec,IP to receive nominative Case. However, in sentence-focuscontexts, movement of the subject to Spec,IP seems to be optional, as illus-trated in (3)

(3) What happened?

a. O Paulo chegou.Paulo arrived

a.’ Chegou o Paulo.arrived Paulo

b. A fábrica ardeu.the factory burnt

b.’ Ardeu a fábrica.

This behavior raises the following question:

a) Why is inversion a felicitous word order in unmarked contexts withunaccusatives only?

In other words, what is special about unaccusatives that enables their subjectsto remain low, differently from what happens with intransitives and transi-tives?

b) Why is inversion optional with unaccusatives?

108 Optionality and left-dislocated subjects: semantic and discourse properties

In transitive and intransitive contexts, there is a one-to-one correspondencebetween word orders and discourse contexts. In this sense, it may be arguedthat there is no true optionality in the language, since each word orderserves different discourse functions. In this case, however, there seems to betrue optionality, since two different word orders emerge for one single dis-course context. The answer to this question must involve showing that theoptionality is just apparent, or providing an analysis predicting two optionaloutputs. A finer look at the data will reveal that the former approach is right.

5.1.1. Lack of agreement in postverbal position

Before examining the context favoring the alternation SV-VS, let us nowturn to an apparently unrelated problem: the patterns of verbal agreementwith pre- and postverbal subjects. As the following examples show, verbalagreement does not vary with word order alternations. This is true for transi-tives (4) and for intransitives (5). A plural subject triggers plural agreementin preverbal position and in postverbal position. All sentences in which thedefault 3rd person singular agreement appears are ungrammatical:

(4) SVO:

a. Os meninos comeram o bolo.the kids ate-3pl the cake

a.’ *Os meninos comeu o bolo.the kids ate-3sg the cake

VSO:

b. Comeram os meninos o bolo.ate-3pl the kids the cake

b.’ *Comeu os meninos o bolo.ate-3sg the kids the cake

VOS:

c. Comeram o bolo os meninos.ate-3pl the cake the kids

c.’ *Comeu o bolo os meninos.ate-3sg the cake the kids

SV and VS in unaccusative contexts 109

(5) SV:

a. Os meninos cantaram.the kids sang-3pl

a.’ *Os meninos cantou.the kids sang-3sg

VS:

b. Cantaram os meninos.sang-3pl the kids

b.’ *Cantou os meninos.sang-3sg the kids

At least for these verb classes, it seems to be possible to generalize that, in-dependently of the word order, subject and verb obligatorily agree in personand number.54

A problem for this generalization appears when agreement with postver-bal subjects of unaccusative verbs is considered.55 In colloquial speech, it ispossible for plural subjects of unaccusative verbs to trigger 3rd person sin-gular verbal agreement. As illustrated in (6), lack of agreement is optional.It is also possible for the verb to fully agree with the postverbal subject:

(6) a. Chegaram o Pedro e o Paulo.arrived-3pl Pedro and Paulo

a.’ Chegou o Pedro e o Paulo.arrived-3sg o Pedro e o Paulo

b. Fecharam muitas fábricas.closed-3pl many factories

b.’ Fechou muitas fábricas.closed-3sg many factories

c. Chegaram as cadeiras.arrived-3pl the chairs

c.’ Chegou as cadeiras.arrived-3sg the chairs

Note that this is not restricted to coordinated subjects, as (6b) illustrates, orto weak quantifiers, as (6c) illustrates. Even a definite DP may occur in this


construction. Partial agreement with coordinated subjects is not restricted toa single verb class, as discussed in Colaço (1998):

(7) a. Brincou o Paulo e o Pedro. intransitiveplayed Paulo and Pedro

b. Chegou o Paulo e o Pedro. unaccusativearrived Paulo and Pedro

c. Comeu-o o Paulo e o Pedro. transitiveate it Paulo and Pedro

The possibility of obtaining partial agreement is restricted to the postverbalposition. In preverbal position, unaccusative and intransitive verbs behavealike in disallowing partial agreement between the subject and the verb:

(8) Intransitive verbs:

a. O Pedro e o Paulo cantaram.Pedro and Paulo sang-3pl

a.’ *O Pedro e o Paulo cantou.Pedro and Paulo sang-3sg

b. Muitos meninos brincaram.many children played-3pl

b.’ *Muitos meninos brincou.many children played-3sg

(9) Unaccusative verbs:

a. O Pedro e o Paulo chegaram.Pedro and Paulo arrived-3pl

a.’ *O Pedro e o Paulo chegou.Pedro and Paulo arrived-3sg

b. Muitas fábricas fecharam.many factories closed-3pl

b.’ *Muitas fábricas fechou.many factories closed-3sg


This behavior of subjects of unaccusative verbs with respect to agreementraises the following questions:

a) What is the relation between the postverbal position and the lack ofagreement?

In other words, why is lack of agreement possible only in postverbal position?What makes agreement obligatory when the subject is preverbal?

b) Why is this option restricted to unaccusatives?

Like the inverted word order is only felicitous in sentence-focus contextswith unaccusative verbs, here, it may be observed that the lack of agreementis only possible with unaccusative verbs. An explanation for this restrictionto one verb class is needed.

c) What is the relation between the unmarkedness of inversion and theagreement patterns discussed?

Finally, one would like to know whether there is any relation between thetwo problems discussed. Arguably, it is not a coincidence that the only verbsthat allow for a felicitous inverted word order are the only ones that allowfor lack of agreement. Ideally, one single explanation for the two phenomenadescribed could be found.

5.1.2. Hypothesis and arguments

Let us make the following assumptions:

a) Subject-verb agreement may be taken as a diagnostic to detect whethernominative Case is assigned to the subject;56

This assumption is a common one. For the specific case of European Portu-guese, it is particularly straightforward to make this assumption, since agree-ment is enough to license nominative case even in non-finite contexts (cf.Raposo 1987):

(10) O Paulo pensa irem eles à praia.Paulo thinks go-3pl they-Nom to the beach


b) Postverbal subjects of unaccusative verbs may be assigned some othercase.

In analyses of unaccusative verbs, such as Belletti’s (1988), it is proposedthat postverbal subjects of unaccusative verbs are assigned partitive Case.Such proposals are crucial for making it possible to postulate that nominativeCase is not the only way to license the argument of the unaccusative verb.

c) Language-internal variation may be due to specific properties of lexicalitems.

In other words, I will assume that the difference between the constructionwith or without agreement has to do with the lexical properties of unac-cusative verbs.

Accepting these assumptions, let us now formulate the hypothesis forexplaining the behavior of unaccusative verbs, which will partially followBelletti’s (1988) analysis of unaccusative verbs in Italian:

(11) Arguments of unaccusative verbs in colloquial European Portugueseare not obligatorily assigned nominative Case.

This hypothesis basically argues in favor of an ambiguous status for unac-cusative verbs. Either their complements must receive nominative Case,hence must move to the preverbal position Spec,IP, or they may be assignedpartitive Case in situ, as in Belletti (1988). In the latter case, there is no needfor them to move, and Spec,IP is occupied by an expletive, which brings theunaccusative inversion close to locative inversion constructions. In Costaand Figueiredo Silva (2003), evidence is presented in favour of this analysis.

In Coelho et alii (2001) and Costa et alii (2002), it is argued that inversionwith unaccusative verbs in Brazilian Portuguese is an instance of locativeinversion. This proposal is based on the following observations. First, thereis no true optionality. It is not the case that in sentence-focus contexts, SVand VS alternate freely, as shown in the examples in (12)-(14):

(12) O que aconteceu?What happened

a. Caiu um avião.Fell an airplane

b. ??Um avião caiu.An airplane fell



a. Nasceram 93 bebés.Were born 93 babies

b. ??93 bebés nasceram.93 babies were born


a. Um frigorífico descongelou.A freezer unfroze

b. ??Descongelou um frigorífico.

In fact, both definiteness effects and subtypes of unaccusative predicatesseem to favour or disfavour the VS order in this context. The second argu-ment for analyzing VS as locative inversion comes from the comparisonwith English. Just like in English, VS in Brazilian Portuguese does not pro-vide information-focus on the subject. The same typically holds for Englishlocative inversion and expletive constructions:


Quem morreu?Who died

a. #Morreu o PM.Died the PM.

b. O PM morreu.The PM died.

(16) English:

Who comes?

a. A man comes.b. #There comes a man.

Based on these two observations, Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003) hy-pothesize that unaccusative VS sentences are locative inversions in Brazilian


Portuguese (cf. Pinto 1997; Ambar 1998; Cornish 2002 for other languages).Assuming with Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) that unaccusatives enter-ing locative inversion constructions are associated to (potentially unrealized)locative or temporal argument (cf. Pustejovsky (1995)), and that expletivepro may correspond to the temporal / locative argument (Pinto 1997), theBrazilian Portuguese facts follow straightforwardly. Since there is expletivepro in Brazilian Portuguese, we expect this language to instantiate VS onlyin the context in which locative inversion is adequate: the context of presen-tational focus in which locative inversions are uttered.

This analysis makes some further predictions. First, it is expected that notall unaccusatives invert, since according to Levin and Rappaport Hovav(1995), some unaccusative predicates are not associated to locative or tem-poral arguments. This would be the case for the predicate descongelar/un-freeze, as illustrated in (17). Second, it is predicted that a few verbs otherthan unaccusatives, selecting the same kind of argument, invert in BrazilianPortuguese. This would be the case for the verb telefonar (to call), as alsoargued in Pinto (1997), and Cornish (2002).

(17) O que é que aconteceu?What happened

Telefonou a Maria.Called Maria

Finally, since information focus and presentational focus are not identical, itis correctly predicted that they may be linked to different types of syntacticconstructions. In fact, English provides independent evidence for distin-guishing the two types of VS order in Portuguese.

This hypothesis straightforwardly explains the agreement patternsdescribed. When the subject is preverbal, agreement is obligatory, as in(18). This is because the subject is only moved to this position when it islooking for nominative Case, and when expletive pro is not in Spec,IP:

(18) a Muitas fábricas fecharammany factories closed-3pl

b. *Muitas fábricas fechou.many factories closed-3sg


In postverbal position, both full and partial agreement may be found, as in(19):

(19) a. Fecharam muitas fábricas.closed-3pl many factories

b. Fechou muitas fábricas.closed-3sg many factories

The two options are predicted under (11). (19a) corresponds to the construc-tion in which the argument needs nominative Case, although it has not movedto Spec,IP. In this sense, it is just like all other cases of subject-verb inversion,independently of the verb class. (19b) corresponds to the locative inversionconstruction in which the argument of the unaccusative verb is assignedpartitive Case. In that case, the verb does not agree with the subject.

Let us consider three arguments that favor the hypothesis formulated in(11), and the analysis just developed.

Argument A: The first argument in favor of the hypothesis formulated above comes fromthe interaction between the patterns of verbal agreement and the distributionof nominative pronouns. Pronouns are the only forms of the language thatare morphologically specified for Case. As expected, in preverbal position,nominative pronouns obligatorily agree with the verb:

(20) a. Eles chegaram.they-NOM arrived-3pl

b. *Eles chegou.they-NOM arrived-3sg

Interestingly, in postverbal position, full agreement is also obligatory, asillustrated in (21):

(21) a. Chegaram eles.arrived-3pl they-NOM

b. *Chegou eles.arrived-3sg they-NOM


This result is expected under the hypothesis in (11). Since the pronoun ismorphologically specified for nominative Case, it must occur in the contextin which it is assigned case. It is therefore impossible to obtain the nomina-tive pronoun with partial agreement, since in that Case there would be nomatching between the morphological Case and the structural Case assigned(partitive). Since the pronominal paradigm of European Portuguese does notinclude partitive subject pronouns, a nominative pronoun may not co-occurwith a non-agreeing verb.

Argument B:According to Raposo and Uriagereka (1990), in dialectal European Portu-guese, it is possible to find overt expletives in constructions involvingpostverbal subjects. Crucially, this possibility is restricted to unaccusativeconstructions. It is thus possible to find an overt expletive cooccurring witha postverbal subject in a sentence like (22):

(22) Ele morreu muitas pessoas naquele acidente.he died-3sg many people in that accident

It is however not possible to obtain overt expletives in intransitive (23) ortransitive (24) contexts, independently of the agreement exhibited by theverb:

(23) a. *Ele cantaram os meninos.he sang-3pl the kids

b. *Ele cantou os meninoshe sang-3sg the kids

(24) a. *Ele comeram os meninos o bolo.he ate-3pl the kids the cake

b. *Ele comeu os meninos o bolohe ate-3sg the kids the cake

This behavior is expected under the hypothesis formulated above. Since theSpec,IP position is not necessarily involved in nominative Case licensingwith unaccusatives, this position may host an expletive with nominative Casemorphology only in unaccusative contexts. With other verbs, nominativeCase associated with this position must be assigned to the postverbal subject.


Before closing this section, let me point out that this behavior of unaccu-satives provides evidence in favor of the traditional analysis of preverbalsubjects in Portuguese (Duarte 1987; Ambar 1992). According to theseanalyses, preverbal subjects are in Spec,IP. As mentioned before, thishypothesis is challenged in Barbosa’s (1995,1996) work, who suggests thatpreverbal subjects in null subject languages are instances of left-dislocation.As noted above, preverbal subjects of unaccusative verbs agree obligatorilywith the verb. This may be explained if preverbal subjects are in Spec,IP. Inthis position, they are assigned nominative Case, which is reflected by ver-bal agreement. If preverbal subjects were left-dislocated, obligatory agree-ment might not be found. Note that left-dislocation of arguments does nottrigger changes in agreement:

(25) a. Comeu os bolos.ate-3sg the cakes

b. Os bolos, comeu-os.the cakes ate-3sg them

Since, as we have seen, postverbal subjects of unaccusatives do not obliga-torily agree with the verb, it could be predicted that they might be left-dislo-cated, as any other subject, according to Barbosa’s proposal. In that case, nochange in agreement would be predicted. However, such prediction is notconfirmed by the data.

5.1.3. Summing up: is there optionality?

The analysis proposed above, based on the proposal of Costa (2001), basi-cally denies the existence of true optionality. The data examined in Coelhoet alii (2001, 2002) and in Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003) suggests thatthere is no true optionality in the behavior of unaccusative contexts. Takingthe fact that under certain circumstances, as shown above, either VS or SVare preferred, and given the comparison with Brazilian Portuguese, Coelhoet alii (2001, 2002) suggest that the SV-VS alternation is only apparent, andthat the cases of VS are instances of identificational focus.

Assuming the analysis of identificational focus put forward in Cornish(2002), the authors claim that the inverted structures correspond to instancesof locative inversion, in which Spec,IP is occupied by an expletive:


(26) [IP pro [ V [VP t DP ]]]

As mentioned above, this analysis derives four independent facts: (i) thisword order is restricted to unaccusatives, since this verb class favors locativeinversion (Levin and Rappoport-Hovav 1995); (ii) agreement may be partialif the inflectional head enters a Spec,head relation with the expletive; (iii)this construction is possible in Brazilian Portuguese, a language in whichSpec,IP cannot be empty and only expletive pro is available; (iv) it is ex-pected that not all unaccusative verbs behave alike, since lexical restrictionsdetermine which types of unaccusatives may enter locative inversion con-structions.

It is crucial for the purposes of this chapter to note that the optionalityfound in unaccusatives is just apparent, and that a closer look at morpholog-ical and semantic properties of the inverted construction was important todetermine the differences between SV and VS.

5.2. VSO and SVO in answers to multiple wh-questions

Another case of apparent optionality may be found in answers to multiple wh-questions. As shown in (27) and (28) both VSO and SVO constitute legiti-mate answers to a multiple wh-question:

(27) Quem leu o quê?who read what

(28) a. Leu o João o livro.read João the book

b. O João leu o livro.João read the book

These data, like the data involving unaccusative verbs, challenges the gen-eralization that, for a single context, there is only one word order available.Moreover, the data exemplified in (28) is problematic for the generalizationmade in the previous chapter that all focus material is rightmost, since in theanswer in (28b) we observe that the focused subject surfaces to the left ofthe verb, which is not focused.

In Costa (2002a), I argued that this optionality is just apparent. As it willbe shown, the semantic properties of the two answers are different. Interest-

VSO and SVO in answers to multiple wh-questions 119

ingly, we will conclude that the semantic aspects relevant for making theSVO answer legitimate favor the left-dislocation of the subject.

5.2.1. Semantic properties of multiple-wh questions

According to Hornstein (1994) and Chierchia (1991), multiple wh-questionshave the following properties:

(29) A: They can be answered with a pair-list;

B: The subject is D-linked (Pesetsky 1987);

C: The answer must be exhaustive.

Let us then check whether these properties differentiate the two word orders.It may be observed that property (30A) does not distinguish the two wordorders:


B: Leu o João o livro, leu a Maria o jornal e leu o Pedro a revista.read João the book, read Maria the newspaper and read Pedro themagazine


B: O João leu o livro, a Maria leu o jornal e o Pedro leu a revista.João read the book, Maria read the newspaper and Pedro read themagazine

Both word orders may be used with lists of pairs. The other two properties(exhaustivity and D-linking) differentiate the two types of answers. In thissection, arguments are presented in favor of the following claims:

A. SVO is not exhaustive.When a multiple wh-question is answered with SVO, it is not necessar-ily a complete answer.


B. In VSO, the answer and the pair Subject-object are exhaustive.When a multiple wh-question is answered with VSO, there are no otherpossible answers, and there is a uniqueness relation between the subjectand the object.

The following arguments provide evidence in favor of the two claims formu-lated above:

A – Continuation without assertion:In spite of the fact that focused elements are rightmost, there is a type ofanswer described in Ambar (1998), in which a focused subject appears pre-verbally, as in (32):

(32) A: Quem comeu o bolo?who ate the cake

B: O João...comeu.João...ate

This type of answer is possible with an intonational break between the subjectand the verb, and it means that the speaker does not provide an exhaustiveanswer. In the case of (32), there may be other persons who ate the cake, butthe speaker is not sure about it.

Taking this type of non-assertive answer into consideration, it may betested whether something like this is behind the difference between VSOand SVO in answers to multiple wh-questions. A way of testing this type ofanswer is resorting to a continuation without assertion. As (33) and (34) illus-trate, this type of continuation is possible with SVO but not with VSO:


B: O João leu o jornal e a Maria leu a revista…os outros não sei oque leram.

João read the newspaper and Maria read the magazine…the others,I don’t know what they read



B: Leu o João o jornal e leu a Maria a revista...(*os outros não sei oque leram.)

Read João the newspaper and read Maria the magazine...the oth-ers, I don’t know what they read

B – VP-ellipsis:A similar argument is provided VP-ellipsis. This will only be possible if thepreceding sentence is SVO:

(35) A: Quem comeu o quê?who ate what

B: O João comeu a sopa, e a Maria também comeu.João ate the soup and Maria also ate


B: Comeu o João a sopa (*e a Maria também comeu)ate João the soup and Maria also ate

This behavior is expected, considering the proposal formulated above. Sincea VSO answer is exhaustive, there cannot be a copy of the VP stating thatthere is a relation between the same object and a different subject.

C – N-words:Like other arguments, argumental N-words may surface either in preverbalor postverbal position. This option is conditioned by their discourse function.If they are focused, they are postverbal. If they are given, they are preverbal:

(37) Quem chegou?who arrived?

a. Não chegou ninguém.not arrive no-one

b. *Ninguém chegou.no-one arrived.


(38) O que é que ninguém fez?what did no-one do

a. Ninguém chegou.no-one arrived

b. *Não chegou ninguém.not arrived no-one

According to this behavior, it would be expected that subject N-words wouldpattern like other subject DPs in answers to multiple wh-questions. At firstsight, this appears to be the case:


B: Ninguém comeu a sopa.Noone ate the soup


B: Não comeu ninguém a sopa.not ate noone the soup

It is asserted that noone ate the soup, but the hypothesis that someone elseate something else is not excluded. Thus, the two word orders are possible.A different pattern emerges when both the subject and the object are N-words.In this case, only SVO is possible:


B: Ninguém comeu nada.noone ate anything


B: *Não comeu ninguém nada.not ate noone anything


The answer in this case is necessarily exhaustive, since no subjects or objectsare left out of the answer. So far, exhaustivity has been linked to VSO wordorders, which might lead to the expectation that VSO should be the answerin this case. Note, however, that there is only one possible answer in thiscontext, and that there is a difference in terms of syntactic markedness be-tween SVO and VSO. Only the former involves movement of the subject toSpec,IP, subjects in VSO being licensed under Agree. Since there are not twooptions available, there is no reason to use the most marked option.

D – VSO is preferred in correction contexts.Another context in which VSO can be used is in correction contexts, as in (43):

(43) A: Ninguém comeu nada.noone ate anything

B: Comeu o João a sopa.ate João the soup

In this case, the SVO option is dispreferred. At first sight, there should beno difference between the context illustrated in (43) and the multiple wh-question, since in both cases the focus of the sentence will be constituted bythe subject and the object. There is however a crucial difference betweenthe two contexts. In the case of correction, a contrast is being established. Inthe case of answer to a wh-question, the focus is merely informational. Awell-known property of contrastive focus is that it involves exhaustivity anduniqueness (Szabolcsi 1981, Kiss 1996). Since, as mentioned above, VSOinvolves exhaustivity, this word order is preferred in contrastive contexts.

E – Generic contexts:The final piece of argumentation in favor of a semantic difference betweenSVO and VSO answers comes from the emerging pattern in generic contexts,as in (44):

(44) Quem come o quê?who eats what

A: As baleias comem peixes.whales eat fish

B: ??*Comem as baleias peixes.eat whales fish


As the example above illustrated, in generic contexts, only SVO is available.A VSO answer is not possible. This follows straightforwardly from the prop-erties of generic contexts and from the properties claimed to be associatedwith SVO answers to multiple-wh questions.

Genericity implies non-exhaustivity (see Krifka et alii 1995). As the con-tinuation test and the VP-ellipsis test show, SVO answers are non-exhaustive,hence it is expected that the word order involving exhaustivity may not beused in generic contexts.

5.2.2. Syntactic consequences

This study of word order in the context of answer to multiple wh-questionshas some theoretical consequences for the syntactic analysis of the SVO-VSOalternation:

a) The generalizations concerning apparent optionality and the distributionof focus may be maintained.

First, the two generalizations concerning the non-existence of optionality andthe distribution of focused constituents may be maintained. SVO and VSOare not free variants. Instead, they correspond to different semantic options.Second, the generalization that new information is rightmost is not discon-firmed by a focused subject appearing in the leftmost position, since thesesubjects are always D-linked, which means that they share some propertieswith topics.

b) Additional argument against FocP for contrastive focus:

It is traditionally considered that FocP is at the left periphery of the clause,taken into consideration what happens in languages like Hungarian. Above,some arguments were presented against the idea that foci occupy a discourse-related functional category. Yet, one might suppose that a left-peripheralFocus Phrase would be reserved for contrastive focus. However, the contextdiscussed in this paper shows that a contrastive and information focus occu-pies a position to the right (VSO), not emerging in a left-peripheral position.

c) Left-dislocated subjects:

The context discussed in this section makes it possible for a subject to be left-dislocated. As discussed in the previous chapter, while preverbal subjects in


sentence-focus contexts exhibit properties that lead to the conclusion thatthey are in Spec,IP, preverbal subjects in answers to multiple wh-questionsprovide evidence in favor of the analysis claiming that they are left-dislo-cated. This reinforces the conclusion stating that an analysis of preverbalsubjects in Spec,IP does not obviate their left-dislocation.

The observation made above was that when there is no assertion, the sub-ject is clause-initial. This behavior is expected, since the subject is D-linked,and topical or given information tends to be sentence initial.

Let us now observe the syntactic properties of the initial subject:

A – It may be doubled by a pronoun


B: A Maria…ela comeu a sopa.Maria…she ate the soup

Pronominal doubling is typical of left-dislocation constructions, which favorsthe hypothesis that preverbal subjects in this context are left-dislocated.

This is unlike what happens in cases of sentence-focus:


B: *A Maria…ela comeu a sopa.Maria…she ate the soup

Since doubling in this context is ungrammatical, it may be defended that sub-jects are not left-dislocated in sentence-focus contexts.

B – Indefinite subject are specific:


B: Um cão…comeu o osso. (= one of the dogs)a dog…ate the bone



B: */??Um cão qualquer comeu o osso.some dog ate the bone

As shown in (47) and (48), an indefinite preverbal subject in answer to amultiple wh-question is necessarily specific. If a non-specific indefinite isused, as in (48), the sentence is ungrammatical. This behavior is not repro-duced in cases of sentence-focus:


B: Um cão comeu o osso.a dog ate the bone

B’: Um cão qualquer comeu o osso.some dog ate the bone

Non-specific indefinites cannot be left-dislocated, which favors the analysisproposed here for preverbal subjects in answers to multiple wh-questions.As for Spec,IP, what triggers movement to this position is EPP and Case-licensing, which is not related with specificity or definiteness. Hence, it isexpected that there is no semantic restriction regarding the type of subjectthat can appear in preverbal position in sentence-focus contexts.

The observation that preverbal subjects in two different contexts leads tothe following consequence: the two analyses available for preverbal subjectsin European Portuguese do not contradict each other. They are both necessaryto account for different facts (see Raposo 2000 for a similar conclusion).Again, as stated at the end of chapter 3, syntax may produce two convergingoutputs: one with a left-dislocated subject, and another one with the subjectin Spec,IP. The choice between the two is made by the appropriateness ofeach one of them, taken into consideration their semantic properties and thediscourse context.


6. Subjects in Spec,TP and the interface withmorphology

6.1. Spec,TP available in I-to-C contexts only

Among the several possible landing sites for subjects in the functionaldomain, nothing has been said so far concerning the possibility for subjectsto be stranded in Spec,TP.

In the previous chapters, it was argued that preverbal subjects in EuropeanPortuguese move to the specifier of AgrSP, while the verb undergoes short-V-movement from V-to-T. This analysis derives the non-adjacency betweensubject and verb in sentences like (1):

(1) Ninguém provavelmente leu bem o livro.no-one probably read well the book

The fact that the verb appears in between two adverbs in (1a,b) shows that itis not the case that there is no V-movement at all in European Portuguese.As mentioned in chapter 1, I assume that subject-oriented adverbs must beTP-adjuncts, since they only appear in the position in between the subject andthe verb. All other positions for the adverb in (2) yield a manner reading:

(2) a. O João estupidamente entornou o café. Subj-Or.João stupidly spilled the coffee

b. O João entornou estupidamente o café Manner/*Subj-Or.João stupidly spilled the coffee

c. O João entornou o café estupidamente. Manner/*Subj-Or.João stupidly spilled the coffee

In this kind of context, it is possible to show that Spec,TP is not an availableposition for the subject, in spite of the fact that European Portuguese allowsfor subject-verb inversion (Ambar 1992). In other words, subject-verbinversion in declarative contexts is not to be analyzed as a case of subject in

Spec,TP and verb in AgrS. The unavailability of Spec,TP is attested in exam-ple (3), in which the subject is doubled by a pronoun, blocking the topicreading for the adverb, and the position for the pronoun in between the sub-ject-oriented adverb and the verb is ungrammatical:57

(3) a. O João…ele estupidamente entornou o café.João…he stupidly spilled the coffee

b. *O João…estupidamente ele entornou o café.João…stupidly he spilled the coffee

So far, the evidence shows that the subject cannot stay in Spec,TP. However,if one looks at wh-questions involving I-to-C movement, it is possible forthe subject to surface right after the subject-oriented adverb:58

(4) a. O que tinha estupidamente o João entornado?what had stupidly João spilled

b. Quando tinha cautelosamente o João lido o livro?when had carefully João read the book

There is thus an apparent contradiction: while the data in (3) show thatSpec,TP is not an available position for the subject, the data in (4) show thatSpec,TP is an available position for the subject. This puzzle becomes moreevident in the next example:

(5) a. O João estupidamente tinha já entornado o café.João stupidly had already spilled the coffee

b. O João…(ele) estupidamente (*ele) tinha (*ele) já (??ele) entor-nado (ele) o café.

João…(he) stupidly (he) had (he) already (he) spilled the (he) thecoffee

c. O que tinha (ele) estupidamente (ele) já (??ele) entornado?what had (he) stupidly (he) already (he) spilled

The crucial contrast is the one between the pronouns in bold in (5b) and (5c).(5b) shows that, in the declarative sentence, the pronouns cannot occur inany position between the subject-oriented adverb and the adverb já ‘already’.In the interrogative context (5c), however, the position in between the twoadverbs is an available position.

130 Subjects in Spec,TP and the interface with morphology

The analysis outlined above for subject non-adjacency and the puzzleregarding Spec,TP raise at least the following two questions:

(6) a. If V does not raise to AgrS, how do Agr morphemes merge with V?b. Why is Spec,TP an available position for subjects in I-to-C con-

texts only?

6.2. The interface with morphology

The suggestion I would like to make is that the availability of Spec,TP is aconsequence of morphological merger of AgrS to V.

Let me start by providing some background on how morphological mergeroperates. According to some works in the framework of Distributed Mor-phology (Halle & Marantz 1993, Bobaljik 1995), affixation takes place inthe Morphological component of the grammar. The fusion of heads is possi-ble under syntactic adjacency, and lexical insertion is made in single slots.Bobaljik (1995) provides two potential scenarios illustrating how affixationmay operate. Suppose there is cyclic head-movement, creating the syntacticunit in (7):

Head-Movement A:

(7) Agrfy

T Agrfy

AgrO Tfy

V AgrO

As defended by Bobaljik, this type of object has consequences for morpho-logical fusion, since there must be two independent morphemes for T andAgr. This is because in a first moment V merges with AgrO, under syntacticadjacency, while in a second step the unit V/AgrO would merge with T.Now, this second step is impossible, since it would predict that the tensemorpheme and the verbal root would be competing for insertion in the sameslot. As a consequence, fusion does not take place, and both T and Agr mor-phemes may cooccur.

The interface with morphology 131

The second type of scenario discussed by Bobaljik (1995) is the one in (8):

Head Movement B:

(8) Agrfo

AgrO AgrSfy fyV AgrO T AgrS

According to Bobaljik, this is the type of head created if T has weak N-fea-tures, not being able to attract AgrO. Under such circumstances, AgrS attractsT, and the complex V+AgrO. Unlike in (7), T and AgrS are syntacticallyadjacent, therefore the two heads may undergo fusion. The consequence formorphology is that T and AgrS morphemes will now compete for insertionin the same slot. As mentioned, for the configuration in (8) to be obtained, Tmust have weak-N features, hence Spec,TP is unavailable.

The big consequence from this type of analysis is that by looking at theverbal morphology, one may know whether Spec,TP is projected. In otherwords, if T and AgrS morphemes cooccur in a language, then Spec,TP isprojected. This analysis is the basis for Bobaljik and Jonas’ 1996 [Spec,TPparameter]. They claim that this is evidence that morphology may act as afilter on syntactic derivations, and that transitive expletive constructionsprovide the syntactic evidence for knowing whether Spec,TP is used as alanding site for the subject or not.

Let us consider some examples discussed by Bobaljik: Icelandic andEnglish contrast in that the latter only provides evidence for Agr or T mor-phology but not for both, while in the former Agr and T morphemes cooccur:

Icelandic: kasta ‘throw’ English: tremble

Present Past Present Past

kasta kasta-δi tremble tremble-dkasta-r kasta-δi-r tremble tremble-dkasta-r kasta-δi tremble-s tremble-d

köst-um köstu-δu-m tremble tremble-dkast-iδ köstu-δu-δ tremble tremble-dkasta köstu-δu tremble tremble-d


The translation of these facts into distributed morphology is the following:T and AgrS are in complementary distribution in English, competing forinsertion in the same slot. The syntactic correlation is the expected one:English lacks Icelandic-like transitive expletive constructions.

Note that, since there is no V-to-I in English, affixation must be madeunder adjacency, a matter I will return to below.

In languages with V-to-I or V2, the same type of distinctions may befound:

German (Dutch is similar): sagen ‘say’

Present Past

sag-e sag-tesag-st sag-te-stsag-t sag-te

sag-en sag-te-nsag-t sag-te-tsag-en sag-te-n

Like in Icelandic, in German, T and Agr are not in complementary distribu-tion, and there is evidence for the availability of two subject positions in theIP-domain.

Bobaljik (1995) crucially presents the contrast between Swedish andAfrikaans. In both languages, the present tense has no distinctive morphology,and there is no evidence for competition between T and Agr. In Swedish, thetwo types of morphology do not compete, since there is no Agr morphology,and in Afrikaans, the past tense is formed with periphrastic constructions.

Swedish: smaka ‘to taste’

Present Past

smaka-r smaka-desmaka-r smaka-desmaka-r smaka-de

smaka-r smaka-desmaka-r smaka-desmaka-r smaka-de


Afrikaans: werk ‘to work’

Present Past

werkwerk Past formedwerk with auxiliary verbs

werkwerkwerk

Yet, there is syntactic evidence that, in Afrikaans, Spec,TP is available,since there are transitive expletive constructions. Based on this contrast,Bobaljik (1995) suggests that the crucial morphological evidence to knowwhether T and Agr are in competition for insertion in the same slot in theGermanic languages comes from the Past tense morphology.

Before getting back to the Portuguese data, let me just address the issueof what counts for morphological adjacency, when there is no head-to-headmovement. Halle & Marantz (1993) and Bobaljik (1995) suggest that do-insertion is used when V and I are not adjacent, blocking morphologicalmerger. The main idea, schematized in (9) is that any lexical material,except for adverbs, blocks the adjacency requirement, and force do-inser-tion.59

(9) a. [IP Subj I [VP VI and V are adjacent, morphological merger is possible

b. [IP Subj I [VP Adv [VP VI and V are adjacent, morphological merger is possible

c. [IP Subj I [NegP not [VP VI and V are not adjacent, morphological merger is not possible(do-insertion)

d. [CP wh I+C [IP Subj tI [VP VI and V are not adjacent, morphological merger is not possible(do-insertion)

With the background given above, we now have the necessary tools toaddress the problems regarding the availability of Spec,TP in EP.


Let us start with the first question raised above, namely how does AgrS mergewith the verbal root, if there is no T-to-Agr movement? It is legitimate toassume that the analysis proposed for verbal morphology in English, a con-text in which there is no V-to-I movement, applies in EP: since there is nomovement from T to AgrS, there must be morphological merger under adja-cency. If the subject is in Spec,AgrS, there is adjacency between AgrS andT, independently of the presence of an adverb adjoined to TP.60 This is illus-trated in (10a). If the subject would stay in Spec,TP like in (10b), therewould be no adjacency and morphological merger would be impossible:

(10) a. [AgrSP Subj AgrS [TP (Adv) T+V [VP tV

I and V are adjacent, morphological merger is possible

b. [AgrSP AgrS [TP Suj T+V [VP tV

I and V are not adjacent, morphological merger is not possible

So far, this straightforwardly explains how AgrS is merged with the verbalroot, and why Spec,TP is not an available position for subjects in declarativecontexts. Recall that, according to Bobaljik (1995), there is a correlation be-tween the availability of Spec,TP and the existence of two slots for Agr andT. His comparison between the several germanic languages also shows thatthe past tense paradigms are the crucial ones. Crucially, the past tense inEuropean Portuguese only displays evidence for a single slot. It is not possi-ble to distinguish independent T and Agr morphemes in the past tense:61

(11) Past tense falar ‘to speak’

fale-ifala-stefalo-u

falá-mosfala-stesfala-ram

It remains to be explained why Spec,TP is available for subjects in interrog-ative contexts. As argued in Ambar (1992), wh-questions with bare wh-formsinvolve I-to-C movement. European Portuguese does not have any strategylike do-support. This implies that in order for the verb to go to I, T must raiseto AgrS, in compliance to the Head Movement Constraint:


(12) a. [CP C+T+AgrS [AgrSP t [TP t

The head created in C has the shape in (13):

(13) C1

Agr C1

T Agr1

V T

Recall from Bobaljik (1995) and Bobaljik and Jonas (1996) that, in a headlike this, there may be no fusion of nuclei, otherwise the verbal root and Twould be competing for the same slot. If neither fusion nor morphologicalmerger can apply, adjacency between Agr and T is no longer relevant. Thesyntactic consequence is that nothing prevents using Spec,TP as a positionfor the subject. This explains why Spec,TP is only available when there is I-to-C movement.

This analysis might make a different prediction, as pointed out to me byJ. Bobaljik (p.c.). It might be the case that when the verb moves to C, throughcyclic head movement, a different morphology would show up. This is how-ever not the case. I will leave this issue unsolved here.

Two additional arguments show that the availability of Spec,TP dependson the existence of I-to-C movement.

First, one may consider other adverbs that may only be adjoined to TP.Such a case is the adverb sempre ‘always’, which occurring preverballymeans something like ‘after all’ (cf. Gonzaga 1997). This adverb providesmore robust evidence for the unavailability of Spec,TP in declarative con-texts, since, unlike subject-oriented adverbs, it cannot be topicalized:

(14) a. O João sempre tinha feito o trabalho.João after all had done the work

b. *Sempre o João tinha feito o trabalho.after all João had done the work

As predicted by the analysis, in questions involving I-to-C movement, thesubject may occur after this adverb:


(15) a. ?Que trabalho tinha sempre o João feito?which work had after all João done

b. Esses trabalho todos, tinha sempre o João feito?, não tinha?all those works, had always João done?, hadn’t he?

Second, as shown in Raposo (1987), inflected infinitives in European Portu-guese often involve I-to-C movement. Raposo (1987) shows that in factivecontexts I-to-C movement is not obligatory, as attested by the grammaticalword orders in (16):

(16) a. Os alunos lamentam os deputados terem votado a proposta.the students regret the deputies have-3pl voted the proposal

b. Os alunos lamentam terem os deputados votado a proposta.the students regret have-3pl the deputies voted the proposal

Inflected infinitives provide a good testing ground for the proposal made inthis paper for two reasons. First, topicalization is impossible in this context(Barbosa 2000, Costa and Gonçalves 1999):

(17) a. *Eu lamento, esse livro, terem eles lido.I regret that book have-3pl they read

b. *Eu lamento terem, esse livro, eles lido.I regret have-3pl that book they read

Therefore, a pre-subject position for a subject-oriented adverb may not betaken as an instance of topicalization of the adverb. Second, since I-to-Cmovement is optional, the prediction is that the subject will be occurring inthe post-adverbial position (Spec,TP), if the verb is clause-initial, whichindicates that there is I-to-C movement. This prediction is borne out. (17a)shows that the subject-oriented adverb may occur in between the subjectand the auxiliary verb. (17b) shows that if there is I-to-C movement, thesubject may remain in Spec,AgrSP, in the pre-adverbial position. The cru-cial contrast is the one between (17c) and (17d). (17c) shows that, if there isno I-to-C movement, the subject cannot occur in between the adverb andthe auxiliary verb. In other words, if there is no I-to-C movement the sub-ject cannot stay in Spec,TP. In (17d), I-to-C movement occurred, and thesubject may surface after the adverb, in Spec,TP.


(17) a. Os meninos lamentam os deputados cautelosamente terem votadoa proposta.the children regret the deputies carefully have-3pl voted the pro-posal

b. Os meninos lamentam terem os deputados cautelosamente votadoa proposta.the children regret have-3pl the deputies carefully voted the pro-posal

c. *Os meninos lamentam cautelosamente os deputados terem votadoa proposta.the children regret carefully the deputies have-3pl voted the pro-posal

d. Os meninos lamentam terem cautelosamente os deputados votadoa proposta.the children regret have-3pl carefully the deputies voted the pro-posal

6.3. The non-parametric availability of Spec,TP

The study developed in this chapter permits drawing the conclusion that theavailability of a specific A-position for subjects may derive from specificconstructions rather than from a global parameter.

This is theoretically interesting, since it raises a number of issues regard-ing the format of the [Spec,TP parameter] and the null subject parameter.The data from EP regarding the availability of Spec,TP suggest that there isnot really a parameter dividing languages as far as Spec,TP is concerned butmuch more local constraints determining whether this syntactic positionmay be used language-internally.

Another conclusion that may be drawn is that the comparison betweenRomance and Germanic languages regarding structure of the clause may beestablished through different paths. The unavailability of transitive expletiveconstructions in Romance does not obviate taking into consideration theselanguages for the discussion of the spec-TP parameter.

Finally, and getting back to the general question concerning the types ofconstraints that affect the availability of A-positions as landing sites for sub-jects, this discussion further confirms that there is not a single answer that


may be given to this question, since completely different factors seem todetermine the usage of different A-positions: while the availability ofSpec,AgrSP seems to be constrained by the syntax-discourse interface,Spec,TP appears to be constrained by the syntax-morphology interface.

The non-parametric availability of Spec,TP 139

7. Syntactic outputs and the interfaces

The discussion carried out in the preceding chapters enables us to addressthe issue of how the syntactic component interacts with interface issues. Iargued that syntax proper does not need to encode discourse notions. Thebehaviour of subjects appears to indicate that, whenever two options can begenerated in the syntactic component, discourse constraints may choose theone that best suits its purposes. However, in some circumstances, as discussedin chapter 4, the two generations cannot be generated in the syntactic com-ponent, for instance, for locality reasons. In that case, even if a subject isfocused, it will not be able to occur in the inverted position.

This type of data leads to the formulation of the following hypothesis:

(1) When the computational system generates multiple convergent out-puts, interface constraints may filter or select them.

The immediate consequence of this hypothesis is twofold: first, the interfaceconditions do not act as syntactic triggers; second, the interface conditions acton outputs either as selectors of one of multiple options, or as filters. Anotherconsequence of this proposal is that whenever only one output is generatedby the syntactic component, ambiguity and/or different types of interfacedisambiguation strategies may take place.

Considering the interface with prosody and discourse, mentioned above,it appears that if the syntax of a language allows multiple outputs in whichdifferent constituents are placed at the position in which they bear sentencenuclear stress, this will be the preferred option. Otherwise, stress shift is usedas a marked option. Under this alternative view, the syntactic rearrangementis always preferred over stress-shift strategies. The goal of this chapter is toprovide further empirical argumentation for this view on the relation betweeninterface conditions and the syntactic component. The arguments to be pre-sented will favour Chomsky’s (2001) proposal that the computational systemis ‘blind’ to most interface considerations.

In section 1, I will discusse the the behaviour of ditransitives in English(Brandt 1999), and in European Portuguese; section 2 will address the behav-iour of possessives in Portuguese and Italian (Cardinaletti 1998; Castro and

Costa 2003); in section 3, the differences between subject-verb inversion inBrazilian and European Portuguese (Costa and Figueiredo Silva 2003).These three types of evidence appear to lead to the following conclusion:stress shift is used only when, for syntactic reasons, a constituent cannotappear at the position in which it is assigned nuclear stress.

7.1. The behaviour of ditransitives in English and in EuropeanPortuguese

The ditransitive alternation in English between V-DO-PP and V-IO-DO hasbeen argued to correlate with focus effects: if the direct object is the focusof the sentence it appears rightmost, if the indirect object is the focus, theorder in which it is rightmost is used (Brandt 1999):

(1) Who did you give the book to?I gave the book to Mary.

(2) What did you give to Mary?I gave her a book.

Not all ditransitive verbs exhibit these two possibilities (e.g. Jackendoff 1990).In those cases, if the non-final constituent is focalized, a marked stress mustbe used:

(3) What did you donate to the library?

a. I donated the BOOKS to the library.b. *I donated the library the books.

These facts indicate that word order alternations are used for discourse pur-poses, only if the syntax generates two options. When only one option is cre-ated, stress-shift strategies are used. Note that, according to most authors, theverb in (4) does not alternate due to lexical semantic reasons (e.g. Marantz1984).

In European Portuguese, there is also a relationship between word orderand focus in ditransitive contexts, as illustrated in (4) and (5):

(4) A: A quem é que deste o livro?to whom did you give the book

142 Syntactic outputs and the interfaces

B: Dei o livro [F ao Paulo](I)gave the book to Paulo.#Dei ao Paulo o livro.

(5) A: O que é que deste ao Paulo?what did you give to Paulo

B: Dei ao Paulo [F o livro].(I) gave to Paulo the book#Dei o livro ao Paulo.

Interestingly, if the focused argument must bind an anaphor contained withinthe non-focused argument, the former cannot be rightmost. In that case, thefocused argument bears a heavy stress:

(6) A: A quem é que deste os livros?to whom did you give the books?

B: Dei [F A CADA AUTOR] o seu livro.(I) gave to each author his book.?*Dei o seu livro a cada autor.(I) gave his book to each author

(7) A: O que é que deste aos autores?what did you give to the authors

B: Dei [F CADA LIVRO] ao seu autor.(I) gave each book to its author?*Dei ao seu autor cada livro.(I) gave to its author each book

In Costa (1998a), it is argued that this behavior of focus binders providesevidence for an Optimality-theoretical approach to focus, since the constraintforcing foci to be rightmost can be violated when it conflicts with bindingrequirements. However, this account failed to accommodate the stress-shifteffects. Under the view advocated here, the output in which the focus c-commands the anaphor is the only legitimate ouput. Accordingly, syntax isnot generating two convergent ouputs, and stress-shif acts as a last resortstrategy.

Incidentally, this type of data not only sheds light on the issue of interfacesbut also on the structure of ditransitive contexts. So far, we have considered

The behaviour of ditransitives in English and in European Portuguese 143

cases in which syntactic transformations generate multiple convergingouputs. The binding facts, and an asymmetry with VOS shows that multipleconverging outputs can also be the result of optional base-generations.

Let us first consider the debate considering the structure of VP in ditran-sitive contexts (Kayne 1984; Larson 1988; Pesetsky 1995; Phillips 1996;among others). As noted in Phillips (1996), part of the debated problemsderives from the fact that constituency tests yield contradictory results, whenapplied to ditransitive VPs. For instances, NPI-licensing in (8) provides evi-dence for a shell structure like in (10), while the fronting tests provide evi-dence for a layered structure like in (11):

(8) a. John gave nothing to any of the children on his birthday.

b. *John gave anything to none of the children on his birthday.

(9) John intended to give candy to children on his birthday…

a. …and [give candy to children on his birthday] he did.

b. …and [give candy to children] he did on his birthday.

c. …and [give candy] he did to children on his birthday.

(10) VP (11) VP2 2

V’ V’ IO2 2

V VP V DO2

DO V’2

V IO

An asymmetry in binding may shed light on this debate. In Costa (1996,1998), and in chapter 4, it was argued that in SVO orders the subject is inSpec,IP. VSO and VOS orders instantiate subjects stranded in Spec,VP.According to these results, the difference between VSO and VOS lies on thestatus of the object. In VOS orders, the objects scrambles out of VP, creatingan adjunction configuration. Following this analysis, depicted in (12), scram-bling is an instance of A-bar-movement:


(12) Viu a Maria o João.[IP V [VP DO [VP Subj t t ]]]

One of the arguments for the A-bar nature of object scrambling came frombinding facts. As illustrated in (13) scrambling of an object to the left of thesubject does not feed binding, unlike what happens in cases of A-movement(13c).

(13) a. *Viu o seu filho cada mãe. VSOsaw her son each mother

b. *Viu cada mãe o seu filho. VOS

c. Cada mãe foi vista pelo seu filho. Passive

The binding facts in ditransitive contexts illustrated above pose a challenge tothis generalization. In particular, these facts raise the following two questions:

A. What is the nature of indirect object scrambling?

B. Why doesn’t indirect object scrambling across a direct object yieldthe same results as direct object scrambling across a subject?

Rephrasing the problem, the binding facts suggest that an object movedacross a subject seems to be A-bar moved, while an indirect object movedacross the direct object seems to occupy an A-position.

The solution I will offer to this puzzle is based on the assumption thatsyntactic structure is strictly binary, and generated from left-to-right, as pro-posed in Phillips (1996).

I follow Belletti and Shlonsky (1995) in their claim that the order directobject-indirect object in Romance is unmarked. Evidence in favor of thiscomes from the emerging word order in sentence-focus contexts (14), andfrom the order found in idioms formed with ditransitive verbs (15–16):62

(14) O que é que aconteceu?What happened

a. O João deu uma prenda à Maria.João gave a gift to Maria

b. #O João deu à Maria uma prenda.João gave to Maria a gift


(15) Dar pérolas a porcos.To give pearls to pigs

*Dar a porcos pérolas.To give to pigs pearls

(16) Pôr mais lenha na fogueira.To put more wood in the fire

*Pôr na fogueira mais lenhato put in the fire more wood

However, I deviate from Belletti and Shlonsky (1995), since I assume thatthe fact that this word order is unmarked does not necessarily mean that itcorrespond to a base-generated word order.

Note that constituency tests also yield contradictory results in EP: on theone hand, binding (18-19) and scopal facts (20) provide evidence for a shell-structure:

(18) a. Entreguei cada livro ao seu autor.(I) gave each book to his author

b. Entreguei a cada autor o seu livro.(I) gave to each author his book

(19) a. *Apresentei a Mariai à filha da Mariai.(I) introduced Maria to the daughter of Maria

b. Apresentei à filha da Mariai a Mariai.(I) introduced to the daughter of Maria Maria

(20) a. Apresentei uma mulher a todos os homens. ∃ > ∀ (preferred)(I) introduced a woman to all men

b. Apresentei a todos os homens uma mulher. ∀ > ∃ (preferred)(I) introduced to all men a woman

On the other hand, gapping (21) and fronting (22) provide evidence in favorof a layered structure:


(21) a. Eu dei livros à Maria e o Pedro [ deu livros] à Ana.I gave books to Maria and Pedro to Ana

b. Eu pus os livros na prateleira e tu [puseste os livros] na gaveta.I put the books on the shelf and you in the drawer.

(22) O Pedro queria dar os livros ao Rui ontem.Pedro wanted to give the books to Rui yesterday

a. …e [dar os livros] ele deu ao Rui ontem.and give the books he gave to Rui yesterday

b. …e [dar os livros ao Rui] ele deu ontem.and give the books to Rui he gave yesterday

c. …e [dar os livros ao Rui ontem] ele deu.and give the books to Rui yesterday he gave

It is important to note that the evidence for layered structures is not crystal-clear, since with other types of ditransitives, stranding one of the argumentsis not good, a problem I will not address here:

(23) O Pedro queria pôr os livros na prateleira ontem.Pedro wanted to put the books on the shelf yesterday

a. ??*…e [pôr os livros] ele pôs na prateleira ontem.and put the books he put on the shelf yesterday

b. …e [pôr os livros na prateleira ] ele pôs ontem.and put the books on the shelf he put yesterday

c. …e [pôr os livros na prateleira ontem] ele pôs.and put the books on the shelf yesterday he put

The contradictory tests suggest that an analysis along the lines of Phillips’(1996) may be on the right track. The consequence of this type of analysis isthat there are two basic ways of generating the two word orders, even if onlyone of them is unmarked. The conclusion from this type of approach is thatthere is no direct relation between unmarkedness and base-generation.Phillips’ analysis is based on the following two principles:


(24) MERGE RIGHTNew items must be introduced at the right edge of a structure.

(25) BRANCH RIGHTWhere a terminal can be attached to more than one position in theexisting structure with no effect on interpretation, the attachment thatresults in the more right-branching structure must be chosen.

The interaction between these two principles operates in the following wayfor the generation of V-DO-IO and V-IO-DO orders:

(26) V-DO-IO:

Step 1: merge V with Direct Object, discharging theta-role

V DO

VP2

V > DOθ

Step 2: Create a copy of V (reanalyzing the direct object as a specifier), andmerge a PP as its sister, discharging the goal theta-role.

VP2

V DO PP

a. VP b. VP2 2

V VP V VP2 2

DO V DO V’2

V > PPθ

Phillips’ analysis predicts that constituency tests may target a step of thederivation in which V and DO form a VP, or the final structure, in which there


is c-command of the DO over the PP. For generating V-IO-DO order, (24) and(25) operate in the following way:

(27) V-IO-DO:

Step 1: merge V with Indirect Object, discharging goal theta-role

V PP

VP2

V > PPθ

Step 2: Create a copy of V (reanalyzing the indirect object as a specifier),and merge a DP as its sister, discharging the theme theta-role.

VP2

V PP DO

a. VP b. VP2 2

V VP V VP2 2

PP V PP V’2

V > DOθ

Note that, as mentioned above, claiming that both orders are base-generateddoes not entail that they should be optional. The structure built in (27) is onlygenerated if necessary for satisfying binding requirements (or any other con-straint forcing the order IO-DO, such as heaviness).

Suggesting that V-IO-DO can be base-generated for binding purposesmakes two interesting predictions. First, as it is also pointed out in Phillips(1996), it is expected that no case is found in which the verb and the indirectobject may be fronted stranding the direct object. This is confirmed by thedata in (28):


(28) O Pedro queria entregar os prémios aos vencedores...Pedro wanted to give the prizes to the winners

…*e entregar aos vencedores ele entregou os prémios.and give to the winners he gave the prizes

The only circumstances under which V-IO fronting is possible with DOstranding are cases in which binding is involved. Although the contrast issubtle, (29) is better than (28):

(29) O Pedro queria entregar a cada vencedor o seu prémio...Pedro wanted to give to each winner his prize

…?e entregar a cada vencedor ele entregou o seu prémio.and give to each winner he gave his prize

Second, this type of approach straightforwardly predicts well-known casesof indirect object control. In (30), PRO contained in the direct object is con-trolled by the indirect object, and it is not necessary to assume that the clauseis right-dislocated, which would be problematic. The analysis I am suggestingpredicts that both DO and IO occupy A-positions, and the control patternfollows.

(30) Eui pedi aos meninosj para PROi/j dançar.I asked to the children to dance

Let us finally turn to the solution of the puzzle presented: why it is not pos-sible for a scrambled direct object in VOS to bind into the subject. Recall thatthe binding possibilities for V-IO-DO and V-IO-DO were derived from thefact that both word orders are base-generated. Therefore, no A-bar-movementtakes place. The problem must now be stated in different terms: the issue nowis why VOS cannot be base generated.

In both cases discussed above, the theta-criterion is satisfied: either theverb or its copy assigns the theta-roles to each one of the arguments. Thisentails that the theta-criterion is satisfied in the course of the clause’s gener-ation (and not pre-syntactically). This consequence strongly clashes withBaker’s (1988) UTAH. In particular, there is no need to derive one of theorders in ditransitive contexts from the other, since the theta-criterion maybe satisfied in both cases.


Independent evidence for the claim that theta-roles may be assigned in thecourse of the derivation, and that the realization of the theta-role maydepend on other factors comes from cases of complex predicate formation(Wurmbrand 1998; Gonçalves 1999). As discussed in Gonçalves (1999), therealization of an embedded agent as a DP or as a PP depends on the transi-tivity of the embedded verb, on the type of main verb, and on the process ofcomplex predicate formation. This is illustrated in (31):

(31) a. Eu mandei correr os meninos.I made run the children

b. Eu mandei ler o livro aos meninos.I made read the book to the children.

Crucially, if all agents were DPs generated in Spec,VP, the pattern in (31)would be unexpected. The fact that the realization of the agent as a PP in(31b) is forced by constraints on complex predicate formation providesindependent evidence for a theory of theta-role assignment that takes intoconsideration the sentence as a whole rather than each of the theta-assigningheads independently. The relevance of the type of main verb for determiningthe shape of the embedded agent becomes even more obvious, in the casesdiscussed in Gonçalves (1999), in which the matrix verb does not makeavailable a PP position, and, as a consequence, the agent theta-role may notbe discharged:

(32) a. Eu vi correr os meninos.I saw run the children

b. *Eu vi ler o livro aos meninos.I saw read the book to the children

Returning to the binding difference between V-IO-DO and V-O-S, recallthat the object surfacing to the left of the subject reconstructs, while the IOacross DO is able to bind. As mentioned above, interpreting reconstructionas a consequence of A-bar movement, and the binding relation between IOand DO as a consequence of base-generation, the question to be answered iswhy the object cannot be base-generated in VOS.

In what follows, I will show that it is not possible to satisfy left-to-rightmerge and the theta-criterion, creating a base-generated VOS. Step 1 in (33)represents the merging of the verb with the direct object, which like in thecase of ditransitive contexts is unproblematic.


(33) V-O-S:

Step 1: merge V with Object, discharging theme theta-role

V DO

VP2

V > DOθ

Step 2: Create a copy of V (reanalyzing the object as a specifier), and mergea DP as its sister, discharging the agent theta-role.

VP2

V DO Subj

a. VP b. VP2 2

V VP V VP2 2

DO V DO V’2

V _=> Subjθ

As shown above, the problem comes about when the subject is merged withthe copy of the verb, in compliance with MERGE RIGHT and BRANCHRIGHT. The resulting configuration, illustrated in (33b) does not yield aproper context for assignment of the external theta-role. In other words, theproblem is that the subject is not a sister to V’, and is therefore unable toreceive theta-role, according to Koopman and Sportiche’s (1991) proposal.63

As a consequence, unlike V-IO-DO, VOS cannot be base-generated. Instead,VOS must be an instance of movement. If it is A-bar movement, the structurein (34) obtains and the binding possibilities follow.

(34) [IP V [VP O [VP S t t ]]]


Crucially, for the discussion in this chapter, we observe a case in which twosyntactic outputs are base-generated, and are filtered out at the interfacewith prosody. One of the two may be filtered out in the syntax, if bindingrequirements are not met. In that case, stress shift applies.

7.2. The behaviour of possessives in Portuguese and Italian

Cardinalletti (1998) shows that pre-nominal and post-nominal possessivesare XPs in Italian, and that post-nominal possessives are used in definitecontexts, only if they are focussed:

(35) a. *la SUA casa, non tua Cardinaletti (1998: 19–20)the her house, not yours

b. la casa SUA, non tuathe house hers, not yours“Her house, not yours”

There is evidence to argue that Portuguese pre-nominal possessives areheads (cf. Castro and Costa 2003). This is confirmed by the following facts:

– they cannot be modified (36a);64

– they can refer to entities with the feature [-human] (37a);

– they can be phonetically reduced in some dialects of Portuguese (38a).

(36) a. *O só meu problema é que não percebo nada disto.The only my problem

b. Um problema só meu é que não percebo nada disto.a problem only my

(37) a. A suai tampa é muito prática. i = Maria/frying panher lid is very practical“Its/her lid is very practical”

b. Encontrei uma tampa suai. i = Maria/*frying panI found a lid her“I found a lid of hers”

The behaviour of possessives in Portuguese and Italian 153

(38) a. O m[e] livrothe my book“My book”

b. Um livro *[me]/[mew]a book my“A book of mine”

In spite of there being an association between definiteness and the use ofpre- vs postnominal possessives, what is relevant for the purposes of thischapter is the asymmetry between European Portuguese and Italian. Whilein the latter, the strong postnominal form is used, even in definite contexts,for focalization, in European Portuguese, this option is not available, hencethe prenominal possessive must be used even in such contexts, associatedwith a heavy stress. In Castro and Costa (2003), it is proposed that prono-minal possessives are weak (non-clitic) heads. This proposal makes the fol-lowing predictions: first, it is predicted that the forms under analysis cannotdisplay clitic-like behavior, since they are not clitics;65 second, the asymme-try between the pre- and postnominal possessives is explained. Since theprenominal weak forms are heads, they cannot be modified, they cannot becoordinated without focalization, and they can be reduced.

This hypothesis also explains the focalization facts. Unlike in Italian, afocalized possessive is not post-nominal:

(39) a. Esse é o MEU problema, não o teu.That is the MY problem, not the yours

b. *Esse é o problema meu, não o teu.That is the problem my“That is MY problem, not yours”

This asymmetry follows from the categorial status of these forms in the twolanguages. Since pre-nominal possessives are heads in Portuguese, they donot enter into configurations typical of XPs, which permit the post-nominalorder. In Italian, because of their XP-status, possessives may surface in twodifferent configurations. The conclusion that can be drawn from these facts isthat the position of the possessive and its relation with its discourse functionsolely derives from its categorial status. If the DP-final position observed forItalian were a consequence of focus-movement to the right, the asymmetrybetween DP-internal behaviour and the availability of a final position forfoci at the clause level would become difficult to explain.


In other words, the case of possessives when contrasted to the general avail-ability of clause-final position for focused items indicates that the correla-tion between domain-final position and focus is to be evaluated in each con-struction, depending on its specific properties, rather than generalized for aspecific language. In the case of possessives, we observe that EuropeanPortuguese behaves like a stress-shift language, just because there is nolegitimate syntactic ouput placing the possessive on the DP-final position indefinite contexts.

7.3. The differences between subject-verb inversion in Brazilian andEuropean Portuguese

As mentioned above, in Brazilian Portuguese, unlike in European Portuguese,a subject which is focused does not invert, remaining in preverbal position(Costa and Figueiredo Silva 2003). This contrast between the two languagesis illustrated in (40):

(40) A: Quem comeu o bolo?Who ate the cake

B: a. Comeu o João. (EP/*BP)Ate João

a.’ O JOÃO comeu. (*EP/BP)João ate

As indicated in (40a’), the non-inverted subject bears a heavy stress. Thiscontrast between the two languages is interesting for the present discussion,since the two languages diverge only when the behaviour of subjects (of nonunaccusative verbs) is concerned. In other instances of focalization, BrazilianPortuguese behaves like other languages in which focus occurs clause-finally,as illustrated in the following examples for ditransitive contexts:


A: O que o João deu pra Maria?What João gave to Maria

B: O João deu pra Maria um CD.João gave to Maria a CD

The behaviour of possessives in Portuguese and Italian 155


A: Pra quem o João deu o CD?To whom João gave the CD

B: O João deu o CD pra Maria.João gave the CD to Maria

(43) European Portuguese:

A: O que é que o João deu à Maria?What João gave to Maria

B: O João deu à Maria um CD.João gave to Maria a CD


A: A quem é que o João deu o CD?To whom João gave the CD

B: O João deu o CD à Maria.João gave the CD to Maria

As argued in Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003), the data in (41)–(44) maketwo different points. First, both languages allow for either complement ofthe verb to surface clause-finally. Second, as shown by the question-answerpairs, the choice between order V-DO-IO and V-IO-DO may be made incompliance with discourse requirements. This case is of particular interestfor the present discussion, since we observe that both languages satisfy therequirement that the focus of the sentence surfaces rightmost. Therefore,positing that the subject in Brazilian Portuguese does not invert in (40) be-cause Brazilian Portuguese does not codify focus in the syntax would notaccount for the behaviour of complements of ditransitive verbs. What appearsto be at stake that differentiates the two languages is that, since BrazilianPortuguese is loosing referential pro (Figueiredo Silva 1996, among others), itis impossible to leave Spec,IP empty, which makes the inverted constructionungrammatical. Therefore, we observe another case in which a syntactic out-put is not generated for a purely syntactic reason, and therefore the best wordorder for prosodic purposes does not arise. Again, under such circumstances,stress shift is used as a last resort.


7.4. Conclusions

The three cases presented instantiate mixed systems, in which languagesresort both to word order rearrangements and to stress shift in very similarcontexts. In all cases under consideration, it was shown that syntax properdoes not need to encode or refer to interface considerations. In other words,the arguments put forward in this chapter provide evidence for a more auto-nomous syntax, not making reference to interface conditions, and argue foran articulated view of the grammar, in which the interfaces read the outputsof syntax, but do not interfere in syntactic derivations.

Conclusions 157

8. Summary and conclusions

The primary goal of this book was to provide an analysis of the severalpositions where the subject may surface in European Portuguese. Departingfrom an architecture of the clause as sketched in early minimalist work,containing two subject-related functional categories above VP (AgrP andTP), it was shown that the subject may surface in all potential landing sites:Spec,AgrP, Spec,TP and Spec,VP. Moreover, just like any other argument ofthe clause, it was claimed that subjects also have the possibility of surfacingin a left-dislocated position, arguably adjoining to the clause’s left periphery.

It was shown that there is no free variation. Each of these positions maybe occupied by the subject, only if two requirements are met:

i) The position is made available by syntax;

ii) The position does not violate any interface condition.

In other words, the following model was argued for: syntax generates legiti-mate outputs. At the interface levels, each output may be selected or filtredout, according to requirements of the interface. This interface licensing con-ditions operate in the following way for each of the identified surface posi-tions:

1. Spec, VP – The subject may surface in Spec,VP, because it is able tocheck Case under Agree (Chomsky 2000). Likewise, Case may bechecked under Move. The consequence is that both SVO and VSO out-puts are equally well-formed from a syntactic point of view. It is arguedthat Information Structure and their interplay with prosody may choose aVSO ouput over an SVO order, when the subject is the focus of the sen-tence and must receive the sentence’s nuclear stress. The idea that Agreeis a legitimate way of licensing an in-situ subject was motivated by theobservation that in-situ subjects are constrained by locality conditions,definable in terms of phase-boundaries.

2. Spec,TP – This position provided an interesting puzzle. Looking atadverb positions, it appears that Spec,TP is an available surface position

for subjects in I-to-C contexts. This observation was explained takingthe interface with morphology into account. It was argued that the sub-ject cannot be stranded in Spec,TP when the subject is in T, since itblocks the merger of the heads Agr and T.

3. Left-dislocation and Spec,AgrP – Non-focused preverbal subjectswere shown to occupy the specifier of the topmost functional category ofthe inflectional domain. This goes against recent claims in the literaturethat preverbal subjects in null subject languages are left-dislocated.Nevertheless, it was shown that the fact that preverbal subjects occupy anA-position does not imply that they necessarily must occupy an A-posi-tion. Looking at contexts of apparent optionality in answers to multiplewh-questions, it was shown that in the appropriate context subjects maybe left-dislocated. For a subject to appear in adjunction to the clause, itmust meet semantic requirements such as non-exhaustivity.

The picture emerging from the proposal made in this book is the following:syntax proper does not need to refer to conditions best placed at the inter-face. All that is needed from syntax is that it generates an array of well-formed outputs. Such outputs may be evaluated a posteriori by each of theinterfaces. If they meet requirements of the interface, they are selected aslegitimate. If, on the contrary, some interface condition is violated, they areruled out. Under this approach, three independent results are derived: i) anexplanation is found for the patterns of word order variation; ii) syntaxproper may be reduced to its own tools, not having to manipulate semantic,discourse or prosodic variables; iii) the intuition that European Portugueseis an SVO language is derived: this word order corresponds to the one inwhich the subject occupies the only specifier position in which the otherinterfaces play no role.

The generalization obtained is that when the computational system gen-erates multiple convergent outputs, interface constraints may filter or selectthem. The immediate consequence of this generalization is twofold: first,the interface conditions do not act as syntactic triggers; second, the interfaceconditions act on outputs either as selectors of one of multiple options, or asfilters. Another consequence of this proposal is that whenever only one outputis generated by the syntactic component, ambiguity and/or different types ofinterface disambiguation strategies, such as heavy stress marking, may takeplace.

160 Summary and conclusions

As mentioned in chapter 7, the arguments put forward throughout the bookprovide evidence for a more autonomous syntax, not making reference tointerface conditions, and argue for an articulated view of the grammar, inwhich the interfaces read the outputs of syntax, but do not interfere in syn-tactic derivations.

Summary and conclusions 161

Appendix: On the nature of agreement in European Portuguese

Introduction

The discussion carried out in chapter 6 strongly bears on the need for Agrinflection to merge with the verb in T. Since Agr typically encodes both per-son and number inflection, it is important to clarify which type of agreementis at stake here. I therefore dedicate this appendix to report on the resultsachieved in Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003a), who claim that numbermorphology is, in most instances, a post-syntactic matter, based on a com-parison between three register of Portuguese. If these results are on the righttrack, the relevant feature for triggering V-movement or morphologicalmerger is person. Since we contend that the most substancial difference inthe inflectional systems of European and Brazilian Portuguese relate to thepresence of person features, two predictions are made:

(i) Number agreement morphology does not necessarily trace the presenceof a Spec,head configuration;

(ii) There are no crucial differences in terms of V-to-I movement betweenthe two languages, since in both, there is person morphology triggeringV-to-I movement (Costa and Galves 2002; Vikner 1997).

The main goal Costa and Figueiredo Silva’s (2003a) work is to discuss anadditional argument against the view that verbal morphology should beexplained in terms of verb movement alone. The following facts from threeregisters of Portuguese are discussed, some of which were previously notedin Galves (1993) and Figueiredo Silva (1996):

1. In European Portuguese, and in two registers of Brazilian Portuguese,there is no evidence to posit different landing sites for the verb. Accordingto the traditional tests (adverb placement and floating quantifiers), in allof them, the verb seems to have moved from V to T, without reaching thetopmost functional head (Costa 1996; Costa and Galves 2002).

2. Yet, the agreement patterns in these dialects are different. As shownbelow, the following generalizations may be drawn:

– In European Portuguese (EP), all elements able to bear plural morphologydo so:

(1) Os carros são lindos.the-pl car-pl are beautiful-pl‘The cars are beautiful’

– In one of the registers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP1), there is no DP-internal agreement, although there is subject-verb agreement:

(2) Os carro são lindo.the-pl car-sg are beautiful-sg‘The cars are beautiful’

– In the other register of Brazilian Portuguese (BP2), there is neither DP-internal agreement, nor subject-verb agreement:

(3) Os carro é lindo.the-pl car-sg is beautiful-sg.‘The cars are beautiful’

These facts raise at least the following questions:

a) If there is robust evidence that in all these language variants, the target ofverb movement is the same, can it be maintained that the morphologicaldifferences follow from verb movement?

b) What type of micro-variation is at play in Portuguese that derives thesedifferences?

c) Is there any relation between the DP-internal facts and subject-verbagreement facts?

The hypothesis developed in Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003a) is that theeffects of visible agreement must be interpreted as a non-unitary phenome-non. They derive from i) the type of morpheme (singleton or dissociated)(Embick and Noyer 2001), and ii) whether Spec-head configurations trigger

164 Appendix: On the nature of agreement in European Portuguese

visible agreement. The possible combinations of these factors derive thevariation found across the three variants of Portuguese.

In section 1of this appendix, we will take a closer look at the data, in orderto provide a clearer understanding of the type of morphological variation atstake; in section 2, the assumptions and proposal for explaining the crosslin-guistic variation are presented; the predictions of the analysis are exploredin section 3.

1. The facts

The facts under scrutiny stem from two different domains: the number agree-ment patterns within the DP (section 1.1), and the patterns of subject-verbagreement (section 1.2). As mentioned, the data comes from three registersof Portuguese: European Portuguese (henceforth EP), and two varieties ofBrazilian Portuguese (BP1 and BP2).

An important remark must be made concerning the Brazilian Portuguesedata: we are somehow idealizing the distinction between two dialects, sincethe same speaker may use BP1 and BP2. This idealization is however con-firmed by sociolinguistic research showing that in designated situations,speakers opt for one of the two varieties.66 If this observation is correct, weare dealing with a case of competing grammars, each one used in differentsituations, in the sense of Kroch (1994, 1997), and it is possible to tease thetwo apart.

1.1. DP-internal number agreement

DP-internally, European Portuguese displays the pattern of number agreementfound in most Romance languages: plurality is expressed in all categoriesable to bear this type of morphology (noun, determiner, quantifiers, adjec-tives, possessives and demonstratives). This is shown in (4):

(4) a. Os/estes/alguns/uns livros muito bonitosThe-pl / these-pl / some-pl /a-pl book-pl very pretty-pl‘The/these/some/ books very pretty’

b. Os primeiros livros da bibliotecathe-pl first-pl books-pl of-the library‘The first books of the library’

The facts 165

c. Os meus livrosthe-pl my-pl books-pl‘My books’

d. Todos os meus primeiros livros bonitosall-pl the-pl my-pl first-pl book-pl pretty-pl‘All my first pretty books’

Both dialects of Brazilian Portuguese behave alike and differ from EuropeanPortuguese. In general, plurality is marked just on the determiner. Nouns andpost-nominal adjectives are not marked for plurality:

(5) Os/estes/alguns/uns livro muito bonitoThe-pl / these-pl / some-pl / a-pl book-sg very pretty-sg‘The/these/some/ books very pretty’

The opposition between prenominal and postnominal positions within theDP is crucial for establishing the agreement patterns. As noted by Menuzzi(1994), plural markers may optionally surface on other prenominal elements,but if the noun is not marked as plural, no post-nominal element may bear aplural morpheme. This derives some variation in the prenominal domain. Pre-nominal adjectives may or may not bear plural morphology. A pattern that isnot found is agreement on the adjective with a non-agreeing determiner:

(6) a. Os primeiros livro da bibliotecaThe-pl first-pl book-sg of-the library‘The first books of the library’

b. Os primeiro livro da bibliotecaThe-pl first-sg book-sg of the library‘The first books of the library’

c. *O primeiros livro da bibliotecaThe-sg first-pl book-sg of the library‘The first books of the library’

Prenominal possessives differ from prenominal adjectives in an interestingway: just like in the case of adjectives, both the determiner and the posses-sive may bear the plural morpheme. However, if only one of them is toagree, the possessive, and not the determiner will bear the plural marker,which distinguishes this case from what was observed for adjectives:


(7) a. Os meus livroThe-pl my-pl book-sg‘My books’

b. *Os meu livroThe-pl my-sg book-sg‘My books’

c. O meus livroThe-sg my-pl book-sg‘My books’

The emerging generalization from these data is the following: either thedeterminer head or all the prenominal elements bear plural morphology inBrazilian Portuguese. The interesting difference between adjectives andpossessives must be accounted for, since the latter is the only case in whichthe plural-bearing element is not the determiner.

1.2. Subject-verb agreement

As shown in the preceding chapters, in European Portuguese, subjects andverb agree independently of the position of the subject. The only exceptionto this is the possibility for inverted subjects of unaccusative verbs not toagree in colloquial speech (Costa 2000):

(8) a. Os meninos comeram o doce.The children ate-pl the candy‘The children ate the candy’

b. *Os meninos comeu o doce.The children ate-sg the candy‘The children ate the candy’

c. Comeram os meninos o doce.Ate-pl the children the candy‘The children ate the candy’

d. *Comeu os meninos o doce.Ate-sg the children the candy‘The children ate the candy’

The facts 167

e. Comeram o doce os meninos.Ate-pl the candy the children‘The children ate the candy’

f. *Comeu o doce os meninos.Ate-sg the candy the children‘The children ate the candy’

(9) a. Muitas florestas arderam.Many forests burnt-pl‘Many forests burnt’

b. *Muitas florestas ardeu.Many forests burnt-sg‘Many forests burnt’

c. Arderam muitas florestas.Burnt-pl many forests‘Many forests burnt’

d. Ardeu muitas florestas. (colloquial)Burnt-sg many forests‘Many forests burnt’

Small clause predicates and passive participles also display obligatory num-ber agreement:67

(10) a. As casas parecem bonitas.The houses seem-pl pretty-pl‘The houses seem pretty’

b. *As casas parecem bonita.The houses seem-pl pretty-sg‘The houses seem pretty’

c. As casas foram destruídas.The houses were destroyed-pl‘The houses were destroyed’

d. *As casas foram destruída.The houses were destroyed-sg‘The houses were destroyed’


Before presenting the subject-verb agreement pattern in the two dialects ofBrazilian Portuguese, it is important to recall that the verbal paradigms aredifferent, as extensively discussed in the literature, in particular in Galves(1993) and Figueiredo Silva (1996). In standard European Portuguese, thereare five different combinations of the person and number features:

(11) Verb cantar ‘to sing’ – present tense

singular plural

I canto cantamosII cantas cantamIII canta cantam

In BP1, the verbal paradigm consists of four different combinations of thesame features, as shown in (12):


singular plural

I canto canta / cantamosII canta cantamIII canta cantam

Analyzing these differences, Galves (1993) proposes that this dialect ofBrazilian Portuguese has lost a semantic distinction for person, but not itssyntactic feature. In fact, the author proposes that the pattern in (12) derivesfrom a combination of binary features for person and number:

(13) [+person, -number] -o

[+person, +number] -mos

[-person, -number] -a

[-person, +number] -m

Obviously, for deriving the European Portuguese pattern, a binary featurefor person will not do, since it cannot account for the three-way distinctionfound in the singular. Independently of the details of Galves’ proposal, thecrucial aspect to be kept in mind for this paper is that number is a distinctivefeature in the verbal morphology of BP1.

The facts 169

In BP2, the verbal paradigm is much more simplified. Taking the same casepresented above for the other two variants, it is possible to observe, that thereis just a distinction between first person and the rest:


singular plural

I canto cantaII canta cantaIII canta canta

For the purposes of this appendix, the relevant aspect is that the differencebetween BP1 and BP2 may be linked to the role played by number. This is arelevant feature for distinguishing verbal forms in BP1, but not in BP2. Inthe latter, only person plays a role.

Bearing this description in mind, let us now look at the subject-verb agree-ment patterns in the two dialects of Brazilian Portuguese.

In BP1, there is number agreement between the subject and the verb:

(15) a. Os menino comeram o doce.The-pl child-sg ate-pl the candy‘The children ate the candy’

b. *Os menino comeu o doce.The-pl child-sg ate-sg the candy‘The children ate the candy’

c. Os menino tossiram.The-pl child-sg coughed-pl‘The children coughed’

d. *Os menino tossiu.The-pl child-sg coughed-sg‘The children coughed’

Unlike what we did above for European Portuguese, for the sentences in(15), it is not possible to test whether the position of the subject is relevantfor the pattern of agreement, since inversion is impossible with transitive andinergative verbs. However, if we test unaccusative verbs, it is possible todetect an interesting difference with respect to European Portuguese. Inverted


subjects do not agree. Agreement with an inverted subject is felt by speakersas posh, as if one is trying to mimic European Portuguese:

(16) a. ??Queimaram muitas floresta.Burnt-pl many-pl forest-sg‘Many forests burnt’

b. Queimou muitas floresta.Burnt-sg many-pl forest-sg‘Many forests burnt’

Another interesting difference with respect to European Portuguese comesfrom predicative and passive constructions: as shown in (17), unlike in EP,there is subject-verb agreement, but the adjectival or participial form doesnot display number agreement with the subject:

(17) a. ??As casa parecem bonitas.The-pl house-sg seem-pl pretty-pl‘The houses seem pretty’

b. As casa parecem bonita.The-pl house-sg seem-pl pretty-sg‘The houses seem pretty’

c. ??As casa foram destruídas.The-pl house-sg were-pl destroyed-pl‘The houses were destroyed’

d. As casa foram destruída.The-pl house-sg were-pl destroyed-sg‘The houses were destroyed’

BP2 significantly differs from BP1. There is no subject-verb number agree-ment in any context, neither with transitive and inergative verbs in SV order,nor with unaccusative verbs in any order:

(18) a. *Os menino comeram o doce.The-pl child-sg ate-pl the candy‘The children ate the candy’

b. Os menino comeu o doce.The-pl child-sg ate-sg the candy‘The children ate the candy’

The facts 171

c. *Os menino tossiram.The-pl child-sg coughed-pl‘The children coughed’

d. Os menino tossiu.The-pl child-sg coughed-sg‘The children coughed’

(19) a. *Queimaram muitas floresta.Burnt-pl many-pl forest-sg‘Many forests burnt’

b. Queimou muitas floresta.Burnt-sg many-pl forest-sg‘Many forests burnt’

c. *Muitas floresta queimaram.Many-pl forest-sg burnt-pl‘Many forests burnt’

d. Muitas floresta queimou.Many-pl forest-sg burnt-sg‘Many forests burnt’

Predicative and passive constructions do not display any plural morphologyeither. The plurality of the sentence is just marked on the subject’s deter-miner.

(20) a. *As casas parecem bonitas.The-pl house-pl seem-pl pretty-pl‘The houses seem pretty’

b. *As casas parecem bonita.The-pl house-pl seem-pl pretty-sg‘The houses seem pretty’

c. As casa parece bonita.The-pl house-sg seems-sg pretty-sg‘The houses seem pretty’

d. *As casas foram destruídas.The-pl house-pl were-pl destroyed-pl‘The houses were destroyed’


e. *As casa foram destruída.The-pl house-sg were-pl destroyed-sg‘The houses were destroyed’

f. As casa foi destruída.The-pl house-sg was-sg destroyed-sg‘The houses were destroyed’

1.3. Summary

Before turning to the proposal made in Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003a),let me sum up the descriptive conclusions obtained, and the issues to beaddressed:

i) In European Portuguese, there is full DP-internal agreement;

ii) In the two dialects of Brazilian Portuguese, number within the DP ismarked either on the D head or in all prenominal elements;

iii) Prenominal adjectives and possessives differ in Brazilian Portuguese,in the sense that only the latter may carry number marking in theabsence of plurality on the definite article;

iv) In European Portuguese, there is full subject-verb agreement, independ-ently of the position of the subject, except in the case of unaccusativeverbs in which agreement is optional with inverted subjects in colloquialspeech;

v) In European Portuguese, there is full number agreement with passiveparticiples and small clause predicates;

vi) In BP1, there is full subject-verb agreement, except for the case of in-verted subjects;

vii) In BP1, there is no number agreement with passive participles andsmall clause predicates;

viii) In BP2, there is no number subject-verb agreement;

ix) In BP2, there is no number agreement with passive participles andsmall clause predicates.

The facts 173

These descriptive statements raise at least the following questions:

a) What is the difference between the plural marker in European andBrazilian Portuguese, allowing it to spread over all elements able to bearit only in the former?

b) Why is it possible to find multiple agreeing elements in BP in the pre-nominal domain only?

c) What is conditioning the difference of behavior between prenominalpossessives and adjectives in BP?

d) What is the difference between subject-verb agreement and DP-internalagreement, differentiating the two dialects of BP?

e) What is the difference between subject-verb agreement and agreementwith passive participles and small clause predicates, differentiating BP1from EP?

f) Why does inversion have an effect on subject-verb agreement in BP1,but not in EP?

2. Proposal

The hypothesis put forward in Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003a) is thatthe type of agreement morphology variation found is not a consequence ofdifferent landing sites for verb movement. In other words, given the evidenceregarding verb movement, it is assumed that the number agreement facts areindependent from the locus of verb movement. In fact, taking into accountthe traditional tests for tracing V-to-I movement, there are no significantdifferences between European and Brazilian Portuguese, that might be pro-vide evidence for postulating different landing sites for the verb. As shownin Costa and Galves (2002), in both languages, the verb appears to movefrom V-to-T, not targeting the highest functional head of the IP-domain.This derives the fact that in both languages the verb may surface in betweenadverbs, and precede or follow floating quantifiers:

(21) Ninguém provavelmente leu bem o poema. (EP/BP)Nobody probably read well the poem‘Nobody probably read well the poem’


(22) a. Os menino(s) todos beijaram a Maria. (EP/BP)The-pl child(ren) all kissed-pl Maria‘The children all kissed Maria’

b. Os menino(s) beijaram todos a Maria.The-pl child(ren) kissed-pl all Maria‘The children all kissed Maria’

Contenders of the hypothesis that Brazilian Portuguese has less verb move-ment than European Portuguese often base their argumentation on the mor-phological facts (cf. e.g. Ambar, Gonzaga and Negrão 2002). The data in(21) and (22) suggest that there is no positional evidence for this claim 68.

The second assumption needed is to assume, following Halle and Marantz(1993), Bobaljik (1995), and Embick and Noyer (2001), that morphemesmay attach to heads independently of movement. In other words, contraBelletti (1990), among others, we contend that a specific inflectional mor-pheme may surface on the verb as a consequence of syntactic head-move-ment, or as the result of a morphological process. We will further follow thetenets of Distributed Morphology in assuming that a morpheme may be real-ized in two ways: as a singleton or as a dissociated morpheme. According toEmbick (1997) and Embick and Noyer (2001), a dissociated morpheme doesnot figure in syntax proper. It is inserted after Spell-Out, only indirectlyreflecting syntactic structures. An application of this idea is proposed inEmbick and Noyer (2001) in order to explain the distribution of definitenessmarkers in the Swedish DP. These markers attach to the nominal root, whenthere is no other material, but, if there is a prenominal adjective, they alsoobligatorily surface on the determiner:

(23) a. Mus-en b. Den gamla mus-enmouse-df the old mouse-df‘the mouse’ ‘the old mouse’

Embick and Noyer (2001) explain this behavior by postulating the followingPF-requirements on the realization of N and D[+df]:

(24) a. N must be marked for definiteness when D is [+def].

b. D[+def] must have a host.

The compliance with these constraints may be established in the syntax. N-to-D movement satisfies both and derives the pattern in (23a). However, if

Proposal 175

an adjective is present, blocking N-raising for some reason, a determinermust be inserted in D for satisfying (24b). However, this is not sufficient forsatisfying (24a). Since [+def] is a dissociated morpheme in Swedish, it can beinserted post-syntactically, attaching to the nominal head, and the constraintin (24a) is satisfied. This analysis of the Swedish facts enables envisaging theagreement between the determiner and the noun as not reflecting a specificsyntactic configuration.

Adopting for EP the assumption that the proliferation of a given mor-pheme may be interpreted as a consequence of it being dissociated, we makethe following hypothesis:

(25) Type of [plural] morphology in Portuguese:

a. [plural] is a singleton in Brazilian Portuguese.

b. [plural] is a dissociate morpheme in European Portuguese.

A corollary of the hypothesis that [plural] may be a dissociated morphemeable to attach to roots independently of their position is that, for agreementto obtain, a Spec-head configuration may be required, although that is notobligatory. This observation conforms to Chomsky’s (2001) proposal thatagreement may be triggered under different types of operation, and is empiri-cally founded on the observation that identical spec-head configurations donot trigger overt agreement in all languages. A clear example is past-partici-ple agreement with displaced objects in French, and the lack of it in otherRomance languages (Kayne 1989):

(26) a. Je les avait faites. (French)I them-acus-fem-pl had done-fem-pl‘I have done them’

b. Eu tinha-as feito. (European Portuguese)I had them-acus-fem-pl done-masc-sg‘I have done them’

According to these assumptions, the observed crosslinguistic variation fol-lows straightforwardly. The difference between European and BrazilianPortuguese derives from the type of morpheme associated with plurality.We contend that [plural] is a dissociated morpheme only in EP. This pro-posal derives the fact that all elements able to bear (subject-agreeing) pluralmorphology will actually carry such markers, independently of the existence


of movement and spec-head configurations. In BP, on the other hand, [plural]is not a dissociated morpheme. Therefore, it will attach to the element anchor-ing the information concerning number. Following Enç (1991), D is the headlinking the DP to its LF-interpretation. Accordingly, the plural morpheme isrealized on this head, which is able to carry this marker. Since [plural] is nota dissociated morpheme in BP, it will not surface in other categories. Thisderives the behavior displayed in BP2: there is a single marking of plural.

As noticed above, under this type of approach, overt reflexes of Spec-head configurations are possible, although not obligatory. This allows forderiving the difference between BP1 and BP2: in the former, but not in thelatter, a Spec-head configuration between the subject and an inflectionalhead yields visible agreement, just like in the case of past participle agree-ment in French. The fact that the same effect does not obtain in BP2 is notsurprising, given the independent evidence for parametrizing the overt effectsof spec-head relations.

In short, the account for the variation in the morphological expression ofplurality may be summarized in the following schema:

(27) pl > dissociate morpheme? > Yes (EP) > No (BP)

Does Spec-head in I trigger overt agreement? >Yes (BP1, EP, French)> No (BP2)

Does Spec-head in AgrO trigger overt agreement? > Yes (French)> No (Portuguese)

With these ingredients, it is now possible to readdress the list of questionslisted at the end of the previous section:

a) What is the difference between the plural marker in European andBrazilian Portuguese, allowing it to spread over all elements able to bearit only in the former?

Since [plural] is a singleton morpheme in Brazilian Portuguese, it will onlysurface in a single head. On the other hand, the fact that it is a dissociatedmorpheme in European Portuguese enables its postsyntactic associationwith all elements able to bear plural marking.

b) Why is it possible to find multiple agreeing elements in BP in the pre-nominal domain only?

Proposal 177

The answer to this question does not entirely follow from the proposed analy-sis, since it involves doing some additional research on the internal structureof the DP. In any case, it is interesting to note that there is a correlation be-tween the agreement facts in BP and the well-known, though poorly under-stood, asymmetry between prenominal and postnominal material as far asphrase structure is concerned. As discussed in DiSciullo and Williams(1987), among many others, prenominal material displays some propertiestypical of heads, resisting modification and not taking complements, whilepostnominal elements display properties typical of phrases. Independentlyof the precise implementation of these ideas, if morphology regards allprenominal material as a complex array of heads, it is expected that the onlyelements marked with plurality are the prenominal ones. By hypothesis, theplural morpheme could then be spreading from D onto the other units of thecomplex head.

c) What is conditioning the difference of behavior between possessives andadjectives in BP?

As shown above, if only one of the prenominal elements is marked with plu-rality, it must be the determiner in D-Adjective-N sequences, which followsfrom the hypothesis that [plural] attaches to the D head, which serves as ananchor to LF. However, if the sequence is D-Possessive-N, the elementbearing the plural morpheme is the determiner, as repeated in (28):

(28) A minhas casathe-sg my-pl house‘My house’

This difference between possessives and adjectives follows from the assump-tions concerning the locus of attachment of the plural morpheme. As justmentioned, it must be attached to the head responsible for establishing thelink with semantic interpretation. As extensively argued in Castro (2001),two facts must be taken into account in order to understand the behavior ofpossessives in Portuguese: i) if they occur prenominally, the DP is definite, ifthey occur postnominally, the DP is indefinite (cf. 29); ii) the definite articlein examples like (28) is expletive. Castro (2001) shows that the latter factbecomes very obvious, when it is taken into account that Brazilian dialectsomitting the expletive determiner before proper names, also do so beforeprenominal possessives, as shown in (30) and (31):


(29) a. O meu livrothe my book‘My book’

b. *O livro meuthe book my‘My book’

c. Um livro meua book my‘A book of mine’

d. *Um meu livroa my book‘A book of mine’


a. *(O) João(the) João‘John’

b. *(o) meu livro é azul.(the) my book is blue‘My book is blue’

(31) Dialectal Brazilian Portuguese:

a. (O) João(the) João‘John’

b. (O) meu livro é azul.(the) my book is blue‘My book is blue’

Since the definite article in definite possessive constructions is not the markerof definiteness, and is just an expletive, and since it is assumed that the [plural]morpheme anchors on the category codifying the information that is relevantfor the interface with the interpretational component, it is expected that thenumber morphology surfaces on the possessive rather than on the expletive.

d) What is the difference between subject-verb agreement and DP-internalagreement, differentiating the two dialects of BP?

Proposal 179

As spelled out above, DP-internal agreement and the visibility of subject-verbagreement stem from two different conditions: no dialect of BP is expected toexhibit D-N agreement, since the number morpheme is a singleton, and thereis no Spec,head relation between D and N. On the other hand, the parametricspecification schematized in (27) stipulates that the Spec,head relation be-tween the subject and I triggers visible effects in BP1 only. These two sourcesfor the visibility of agreement combined derive the fact that the two dialectsof BP behave alike in the DP-internal domain, but differ in the subject-verbagreement patterns.

e) What is the difference between subject-verb agreement and agreementwith passive participles and small clause predicates, differentiating BP1from EP?

It was observed that, while in EP, number agreement surfaces everywhere,including in passive participles and small clause predicates, in BP1 there isonly subject-verb agreement, but not agreement with the passive participlesand small clause predicates. This difference in behavior straightforwardlyfollows from our analysis: since subject-verb agreement in BP1, unlike in EP,is a consequence of Spec,head agreement, we expect to find it only when-ever the subjects stands in a Spec,head configuration with the agreeing head.Since within small clauses, there is no Spec,head relation between the subjectand the predicate, and there is a head-complement relation between passiveparticiples and the subject, the configurations needed for agreement to arisedo not exist in these two constructions. In EP, on the contrary, since agree-ment is established via the postsyntactic insertion of the dissociated mor-pheme, number agreement arises independently of the type of configura-tional relation between the subject and the agreeing head.

f) Why does inversion have an effect on subject-verb agreement in BP1, butnot in EP?

The answer to this last question is related to the previous one. Assumingwith Belletti (1988) that inverted arguments of unaccusative verbs stay intheir base-generated position, there is no Spec,head relation between theinflectional head and the subject, hence no visible agreement arises. In EP,on the contrary, since number agreement is a dissociated morpheme, inde-pendently of there being a Spec,head configuration, the verb and the subjectmay agree.


At this point, it is important to understand what goes on in colloquial Euro-pean Portuguese, in which, as mentioned above, the inverted subject of anunaccusative may not agree with the verb:

(32) Ardeu muitas florestas.Burnt-sg many-pl forests‘Many forests burnt’

Costa et al. (2002) argue that (32) is an instance of locative inversion. In thatcase, (32) exhibits Spec,head agreement with an expletive subject. In supportof their claim, they show that lack of agreement shows up in cases of identi-ficational focus, but not in cases of information focus:

(33) A: Quem é que chegou? (EP)who is that arrived?‘Who is arrived?’

B: a. ??Chegou os alunos.Arrived-sg the students‘The students arrived’

b. Chegaram os alunos.Arrived-pl the students‘The students arrived’

Looking at non-null-subject languages, like English, it is possible to knowthat expletive constructions and locative inversions are not used in informa-tion focus contexts:

(34) A: Who is coming?

B: a. John is coming.

b. #There comes John.

The interpretation Costa et al. (2002) make of these facts is the following: ininformation focus contexts, there is no expletive involved, which derives theobligatory agreement with the argument. In locative inversion contexts, thereare two candidates for agreement, the expletive and the argument, and varia-tion is found.69

Proposal 181

3. Further predictions

Besides deriving the agreement facts presented in section 1, the presentanalysis makes the following interesting predictions with consequences forthe treatment of other phenomena that we would like to emphasize:

a) In EP, independently of the word order found, there is always full numberagreement (Costa 1998), since agreement is not dependent on a specificsyntactic configuration. This prediction has consequences for analyses ofinversion. If this analysis is on the right track, the visibility of agreementmust not be taken as a sign that at some point of the derivation the invertedsubject stood in a Spec,head relation with the subject in the inflectionaldomain.

b) Returning to the behavior of possessives in Brazilian Portuguese, an addi-tional fact is correctly predicted by this analysis. Prenominal possessivesdisplay number agreement in BP1, while postnominal possessives do not,as shown in (35):

(35) a. o meus livro b. uns livro meu.the-sg my-pl book-sg some-pl book-sg my-sg‘my books’ ‘some books of mine’

Assuming with Schoorlemmer (1998), Castro (2001), among others, thatonly the prenominal possessive is a head related to D, while the postnominalpossessive is an XP, it is expected that the singleton [plural] morpheme onlyattaches to the former.

c) Scherre (1994) shows that in the variation found for the agreement pat-terns in the Brazilian dialects there are very many variables that do not fitwell within a purely syntactic approach for deriving agreement patterns.Such variables include aspects such as phonological salience of the num-ber marker and linear position. It is interesting to note that locating theanalysis of agreement patterns at the interface between syntax and mor-phology, at the PF wing of the grammar, opens up a way for accommo-dating variables that are morphophonological in nature.

d) Finally, this analysis makes an interesting prediction concerning thevariation found within Romance languages as to what the target of V-to-I


movement is and its correlation with differences in number agreementinflection. One of the departure points leading this proposal was theobservation that the differences between the three variants of Portuguesefound in the verbal agreement pattern do not correlate with differentlanding sites for the verb. It was further shown that the differencesbetween the three dialects were linked to the marking of number, sincethey all encode person differences, even if in different degrees. Let usconsider Vikner’s (1997) generalization concerning the morphologicalevidence for there being V-to-I movement:

(36) Vikner’s generalization:

A language has V-to-I movement if there is Inflection for Person inall tenses.

Since all three variants of Portuguese encode inflection for Person, Vikner’sgeneralization and this analysis correctly predict that there is no differenceas far as the target of verb movement is concerned.

It is further predicted that a given language may move the verb higherthan the other and yet exhibit a weaker number morphology. Assuming withCosta (1996) and Costa and Galves (2001) that the targets of V-to-I move-ment are AgrS in French and T in European Portuguese, the prediction iscorrectly borne out. French is a language moving the verb higher thanEuropean Portuguese, and exhibiting less number agreement.

4. Conclusion

The proposed analysis not only accounts for the variation described betweenthe three varieties of Portuguese, but it also provides clear evidence for anautonomous morphological component, deriving morphological aspects oflanguage in a way that is partly independent from syntax. Interestingly, itwas crucial for these conclusions to be reached to relate the DP-internalagreement facts with subject-verb agreement.

Assuming these results for number agreement, it may be hypothesizedthat the relevant part of inflection for the discussion carried out in chapter 6concerns person inflection.

Conclusion 183

Notes

1. I am not adopting the radical position that all adverbs are adjoinable to differentprojections. Rather, I will follow a mixed approach, accepting that some adverbshave fixed positions and others may be adjoined to different projections. SeeCosta (1998, 2002) for a discussion of the relevant data.

2. In Costa and Galves (2002), it is argued that the same holds for Brazilian Portu-guese.

3. See Costa (2000a) and Costa and Duarte (2002) for a comparison between thetwo analyses.

4. The non-adjacency between the subject and the verb is explained in terms ofpartial-V-movement. See chapter 1.

5. Duarte (1996) mentions that those speakers who accept (9b) only accept it if thepreposed constituent is not doubled by a clitic, which favors an analysis of thisconstruction in terms of topicalization, rather than clitic-left-dislocation.

6. Note that this case is different from the type of example discussed by Barbosa(2000), presented in (i):(i) a. Cresceu uma flor em todos os vasos.

grew a flow in every potb. ???Uma flor cresceu em todos os vasos.

a flower grew in every potBarbosa (2000) presents this contrast as an argument in favor of her hypothesis,since there is no a priori reason to consider that Spec,IP is incompatible withwide scope reading of the subject. However, the contrast in (i) just leads to theconclusion that, whenever there are two available positions for the subject, theycan be used to codify different readings (see also Adger 1994; Costa 1998; amongothers), independently of the A- vs A-bar status of the positions.

7. As pointed out to me by P. Barbosa, for some reason, the verb telefonar ‘tocall’ behaves differently:(i) O que é que aconteceu?

a. O João telefonou.b. Telefonou o João.

This is the pattern found for unaccusative verbs (Costa 2001). Assuming withPinto (1997) that the verb telefonar behaves like unaccusatives in being able toselect a temporal operator, enabling locative inversion, this behavior follows(see Costa and Figueiredo Silva 2003 for further arguments for this hypothesis).

8. In Costa (1997, 1998), a discussion of differences between definite and indefinitepreverbal subjects is presented. Since the data turn out to be not very clear, I willnot reproduce the discussion here.

9. See Lobo (2003) for an argument for not establishing a full parallel betweenthese I-to-C contexts and conditional clauses headed by a complementizer.

10. Note that the ungrammaticality of (17b) is problematic not only for Barbosa’sanalysis, but also to the claim put forward in this chapter that the two analysesare not incompatible.

11. As noted by a reviewer of Costa (2003), the existence of mixed systems is notenough to rule out the possibility that Barbosa’s analysis holds for languages inwhich it is not possible to distinguish between different types of pro. The pointI am trying to make is that her analysis cannot be generalized to all types ofnull subject languages.

12. For a difference between the judgements by Ribeiro (2002) and corpus data,see Lobo (2003).

13. I am ignoring here the exact label of I. This may cause some confusion, whenthis discussion is confronted with the assumptions of chapter 1, since I arguedfor different landing sites for verbs in English, French and Portuguese. I decidedto do so to make the discussions clearer. For clarity: I is the functional categorywhere subjects land, that is, AgrSP in chapter 1. For the present discussion, thecrucial fact is whether we need or do not need a landing site for the verb abovethe category where subjects move for case reasons.

14. VS order in embedded context is possible with all verbs and all types of mainverbs, which makes it different from the contextually dependent embedded V2phenomena in languages such as Icelandic and Yiddish (see McCloskey 1992for contexts of CP-recursion and Rizzi 1997 for a specific proposal on split-CP).

15. Actually (18a) is grammatical, but the adverb gets a different (aspectual) mean-ing. For controlling for that factor, one may have another monosyllabic adverb,in the ruled in position, with a contradictory meaning and the sentence wouldremain grammatical:(i) Bem comeu mal o Paulo maçãs.

16. I am not going to speculate here on the mechanism which renders binding possi-ble in this context. I would like to note anyway that it is very likely that theobject QP is bound not by the right-dislocated subject but by the pro in subjectposition.

17. Speakers of Dutch disagree with respect to the possibility of scrambling PPs.There seems to be some variability with respect to the adverbs that intervenebetween the PP and the verb. I keep these examples in the text, since they arefully acceptable for some speakers, but I am aware that a more precise collec-tion of data is in order. Thanks to Martin Honcoop, Ruben van de Vijver andMarga Petter for pointing this problem out to me.

186 Notes

18. Monosyllabic adverbs seem to be a reliable test for the distribution of argumentsin Portuguese and in English, but not in Dutch. For this reason, I will contrastthe sentences in Portuguese with Dutch sentences involving other types of ad-verbs. I have no explanation for why monosyllabic adverbs differ in behaviorcross-linguistically.

19. See also Costa and Duarte (2003) for an alternative proposal regarding the vari-able status of the null object.

20. (55b) is possible if the adverb is modifying the adjective simpática ‘friendly’.21. Deprez (1989) presents some data suggesting that scrambled DPs in German

license parasitic gaps. See Doetjes (1997) and Costa (1998) for discussion ofthe status of FQs associated with objects.

22. Note the ungrammaticality of (i):(i) *O Pedro leu os livros bem todos.

Pedro read the books well all23. See example (71).24. This argument only goes through under the assumption that remnant movement

is not a root phenomenon, which must be the authors’ assumption since VOSinterrogatives are possible in embedded contexts:(i) Perguntei a quem deu o livro o Pedro.(I) asked to whom gave the book Pedro

25. This argument only holds if the distribution of clitics is indeed syntacticallytriggered. Barbosa (2000) has suggested that enclisis is triggered any time a cliticis initial in a prosodic constituent, which would be the case in the sentences in(99). If the prosodic analysis proves true, this argument against the remnantmovement analysis does not hold.

26. As mentioned above, I will call the languages in which the shift Adv-comple-ment affects only NPs object-shift languages. These include Danish, Norwegianand Swedish, which move only pronouns and Icelandic and Faroese, which moveNPs. When unnecessary, I will not distinguish the pronoun-shifting languagesfrom the NP-shifting languages.

27. I am using the alternation specific/non-specific here for ease of explanation. Itmay be seen below that I will not consider specificity the trigger for scrambling,but for now it is enough to note that similar effects arise with NPs and adverbs.

28. A further problem for Diesing’s approach, pointed out to me by Sjef Barbiers,is that in a sentence like (i), the object must be analyzed as being outside VP,and the subject inside VP, which is obviously not feasible:(i) Er heeft iemand het pakje op tafel laten ligeen.

there has someone the pack on the table let lay.29. See Ladd (1996) for the several types of marked stress.30. As extensively discussed in Reinhart (1995), this analysis captures the so-called

specificity effects.

Notes 187

31. Note, however, that the combination of the two arguments leads to a surprisingcontradiction, since Hungarian focus movement does not yield WCO-effects,as noted by Brody (1995).

32. The relational nature of focus prevents an analysis in which the constituentcontaining the focused part is pied-piped. In most analyses involving focusmovement (e.g. Ambar 1998), focused constituents move in order to form adomain separate from the part of the sentence that yields given information. Ifthe two types of information occur in the same position because of pied-piping,this type of relation is lost.

33. Such a hypothesis is entertained in Chomsky (1995). It has been pointed out tome that the lack of multiple foci overtly moved in Hungarian may follow froma feature-checking approach. If there is only one strong focus feature in the Fposition in Hungarian, the other focused elements may stay in situ, on a pairwith multiple questions in English. I am not sure whether this analysis maywork, since as we will see later, Hungarian focus entails uniqueness and is notrecursive in the same way English cleft constructions are not recursive:(i) *It was in front of the cinema that it was John that Eve waited for.

If, as it will be discussed below and is argued in É. Kiss (1996), clefts are indeedthe counterpart of Hungarian focus movement, it has to be explained why multi-ple-clefting and multiple focused elements are impossible, if multiple in-situfoci are possible. Furthermore, note that in Hungarian contrastive foci in situ areruled out, even if there is a focused constituent moved (K. Polgardi (personalcommunication)). Thus, the parallel with wh-movement does not hold since: (i)there does not seem to be a language with multiple focus movement or with co-occuring moved contrastive focus and in-situ contrastive focus.

34. A related functional head has been proposed for Portuguese by Martins (1994),Uriagereka (1995), Raposo (2000), among others.

35. Note that it is not my goal here to present a solution to Rooth’s problems. Theimportant point of Rooth’s theory which I will follow here is to eliminate Focus-movement from the set of LF-operations. That is, when foci move, they move in-dependently of their being foci: the creation of bound variable readings forcesthem to be QR-ed. One may wonder what is the advantage of trading focusmovement for QR. The advantage is: this QR is independently necessary, andapplies to Quantifiers, not to foci without quantificational force.

One of my goals in this study is to try derive as many word orders as possiblewithout resorting to covert operations. The best evidence for covert operationscomes from the behavior of quantifiers (May 1985), hence, it should be possibleto reduce the evidence of some of the apparent focus movement constructionsto independently necessary QR operations.

36. It is important to note that this does not mean that topic is the complement offocus. I will assume with Jäger (1996) and Büring (1995) among others a tri-

188 Notes

partite structure for information: topic, focus and background. These analysesmake the right prediction that a sentence may have only a focus, or no topic. SeeBüring and references therein for discussion.

37. This implies that marked stress and rightmost placement are not competingstrategies for marking focus. Instead, stress appears as a last-resort mechanism.See Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003) for further arguments.

38. See arguments in favor of interpreting focus also as a prosodic phenomenon inEP in Frota (1992).

39. Keep in mind that this type of prominence and the one described in Frota’s workare distinct. In this section, no prosodic analysis of the prominence will bemade. I will just propose an algorithm enabling the hearer to identify the locusof the main prominence. It is by no means my goal here to make any specificclaims about the nature of the stress assigned to focused constituents.

40. Her conclusions and my discussion are independent of the actual structure of VP,since she claims that stress on any constituent of VP is sufficient for enablingprojection.

41. Cinque’s algorithm is defined in terms of embedding, while here I use linearorder. I will leave aside the discussion between embedding and linearity for themoment, returning to it when it will be relevant. A reviewer to Costa (2002a)points out to me that the algorithm in (49) does not apply to these cases, and thatit should be defined in terms of rightmost word rather than constituent. I willstick to the definition in terms of constituent following the tradition in phrasalphonology and in prosody, since the predictions are exactly the same. The samereviewer argues that marked and unmarked stress assignment follow from dif-ferent mapping conditions. This is not true, as discussed in this paragraph: incase of VSO with main stress on the subject, the focus set is the subject andeverything it c-commands (the object), in case of SVO with main stress on theobject, the focus set is this element (which is ambiguously the rightmost part ofthe NP, VP and IP as a consequence of iambic stress) and everything it c-com-mands (nothing). The crucial difference between the two cases is whether ornot the constituent bearing main stress c-commands another constituent. Whenthat is not the case, the effects of focus-projection arise. Crucially, the algorithmin (38) predicts both cases.

42. The same reasoning applies to exclude a sentence-focus interpretation for a VSOsentence with unmarked stress. See the next two chapters for a formalization ofthis analysis in terms of markedness, and for an explanation of cross-linguisticvariation in sentence-focus context.

43. It has been pointed out to me that subject movement in this case corresponds toa case of defocusing yielding an unmarked word order, which is not common todefocusing operations. Note however, that defocusing in these cases also hasthe function of topic-promotion which very often is associated with subjects

Notes 189

being in their canonical Spec,IP position, given the natural tendency for subjectsto be the topic of the sentence (cf Lambrecht 1994, Li 1976). Under the assump-tion that markedness arises as a consequence of a natural tendency not beingmet, subject topic-promotion should not yield a marked word order.

44. Szendrói (2001) convincingly argues that, even for Hungarian, it is not necessaryto assume a focus position in the left periphery. According to this author, theso-called focus movement is an instance of prosodic movement in the sense ofReinhart (1995).

45. More subtle differences concerning the discourse function of preposed ele-ments are given in Ambar (1998), who also shows that preposed elements maynot be absolute new information, but argues for the existence of what she callstopic/focus in which there is fronting and some function overlap. Although suchcases do not disconfirm the main observation that the function of focus-in-situis different from the function of preposing, I think it is important to refer tothem for completeness.

46. See also Quer (2002) for arguments from Catalan to distinguish focus-move-ment from QP-fronting.

47. It must be known why SVO is the only felicitous order when the whole sentenceis focused. In Costa (1998, 2000c), this fact is analyzed within Optimality Theoryas a case of Emergence of the Unmarked. In this work, it must be stipulated that,under equal circumstances, Move takes precedence over Agree. See Wurmbrand(2001) for a discussion of the choice between Move and Agree.

48. These facts are crucial for deciding between this analysis and the proposalmade in Costa (1998), in which inverted subjects were violating their licensingrequirements, for satisfying a constraint on focus.

49. Incidentally, these data provide an argument in favor of Hornstein’s (1999,2000) hypothesis that control may be considered movement. I will not take astrong position regarding this issue, since the sentences in (182b,d) must involvePRO.

50. For the status of these adverbs, see Castro and Costa (2003).51. As mentioned above, inversion n Brazilian Portuguese is restricted to unac-

cusative contexts. Crucially, it is important to note for the purposes of this sec-tion that inversion with copula is possible in Brazilian Portuguese.

52. The lack of minimality effects in embedded contexts, as shown in (i) might leadto the conclusion that inversion in this type of context is an instance of move-ment of the predicate to Spec,IP rather than some type of topicalization:(i) a. Eu pergunto-me em que ano o rei serei eu.

I wonder in which year the king will-be-1sg Ib. *Eu pergunto-me que ano o rei verei eu.

I wonder in which year the king will-see-1sg I

190 Notes

However, Tavares (in preparation) shows that a comparison between left-dislo-cated elements and inverted predicates reveals that they share some properties,permitting a treatment of inverted copular constructions as left-dislocation.

53. The following problem arises: Brazilian Portuguese has raising verbs of theseem-type, allowing raising of the subject to the matrix IP, which provides evi-dence for the lack of CP. However, contrary to the prediction made here, if acopular verb is embedded under seem, the agreement still goes with the matrixverb:(i) O assassino parece ser eu.

The murderer seems to be IAlthough the problem is obvious, it does not necessarily constitute a problem forthe analysis, since this type of verbs allow super-raising in Brazilian Portuguese,even when CP is projected. Therefore, the raising of the subject in non-finitecontexts is not compelling evidence for saying that CP is not projected in thislanguage.

54. For an analysis of agreement in Portuguese, see Costa and Figueiredo Silva(2003a).

55. The data involving lack of agreement with postverbal subjects of unaccusativeverbs come from colloquial speech. These constructions, although producedquite often by the speakers, are not accepted as grammatical in prescriptivegrammars.

56. As discussed in Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003a), this assumption is onlyvalid in a language or dialect in which nominative subjects trigger agreementindependently of their placement in transitive and intransitive contexts. InBrazilian Portuguese, this assumption does not hold.

57. (3b) is only legitimate with a topic intonation for the adverb.58. In most examples involving I-to-C movement, I will use auxiliary verbs so that

I am able to control the position of the inverted subject. Leaving the participlebehind allows for making sure that the subject surfaces to its left, and not inSpec,vP.

59. The special status of adverbs remains unaccounted for. It is not clear whyadverbs should not count as interveners. As Bobaljik (1995) discusses, this is amore general issue, however, since in other domains, adverbs seem to behavein the same way, in not disrupting adjacency relations. For a possible solutionto this problem, see Bobaljik (2002).

60. In Costa and Figueiredo Silva (2003a), it is argued that the number agreementmorphology in Portuguese has the status of dissociated morphemes, in thesense of Embick and Noyer (2001). This assumption does not compromise theresults of this chapter, since the scope of the discussion is both person andnumber agreement. Cf. the appendix to this chapter for discussion on the statusof agreement in Portuguese.

Notes 191

61. The morpheme -va- of the imperfect in forms like fala-va-mos ‘we talked’ maybe an aspectual morpheme rather than a tense morpheme, since the past of animperfect may be expressed with an auxiliary construction, in which tense isexpressed by the auxiliary verb. According to some authors, aspectual headssurface below T, and cyclic head-movement predicts that the aspectual mor-phology surfaces as an independent morpheme. It is likely that the same holdsfor future, an issue to be further explored.

62. The only cases in which other orders are found in idioms involve Heavy com-plements:(i) Dar a César o que é de César.

Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar

63. Since this is not a restructuring context, isomorphism with a matrix verb willnot play any role.

64. The only cases in which there is apparent modification of a prenominal posses-sive can be argued not to instantiate of modification of an XP by another XP, butrather head adjunction (Castro and Costa 2003).

65. A question to be addressed is what the distinction is between Xº weak formsand Xº clitics. Note that the same question arises for the distinction betweenstrong XPs and weak XPs. As already noticed by Cardinaletti and Starke(1999), the distinctions do not follow from categorial status alone. In the caseat stake, we can hypothesize that the difference between clitics and weak Xº isprosodic.

66. Pereira (1993), cited by Scherre (1994), reports the following rates of agreementfor one single literate speaker:

talking to his boss talking to his family talking to his employees

verbal agreement 98% 91% 24%

DP-internal agreement 90% 52% 42%

This case shows that the same speaker masters the three dialects under discussionin this paper, using each one of them in different conversational situations, con-firming our hypothesis that BP1 and BP2 are to be treated separately.

67. Costa and Pereira (2003) present evidence from agreement with the pronominalform a gente (lit.the people), which is grammatically specified for 3rd personsingular, and referentially specified as a 1st person plural, showing that the num-ber marker that is at stake is semantic number marking.

68. Even in BP2, a dialect using tudo, a non-inflected form of the quantifier all, wesee the same possibilities of word order:(i) Os menino tudo beijou a Maria

The-pl boy-sg all kissed-sg the Mary‘The boys all kissed Mary’

192 Notes

(ii) Os menino beijou tudo a MariaThe-pl boy-sg kissed-sg all the Mary‘The boys all kissed Mary’

69. Matters may turn out to be more complicated. Based on facts like (i), Tavares(in preparation) claims that in the presence of two candidates for agreement, theone entering in a Spec,head relation with I categorically agrees:(i) Neste jogo, tu {és/*sou} eu e eu {*és/sou} tu.

In this game, you {are/am} I and I {are/am} you‘In this game, you are me and I am you’

At this stage, it is however difficult to incorporate these results in the discussionof the patterns of agreement in unaccusative contexts, since in the latter, there isvariation only in colloquial speech.

Notes 193

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References 207

A-bar, 8, 13–15, 32, 44–45, 56, 63, 65,69, 73, 144–145, 150–152, 185,

adjacency, 4, 8, 14, 36, 40, 52, 53, 57,75–76, 129, 131, 133–136, 185,191

adjunction, 2, 14, 27, 29, 31, 36, 40,45–46, 50, 68, 74, 99, 129, 144,160, 192

adverbs, 2, 6–10, 14, 23, 25–29, 32, 36,39–41, 43–44, 48, 50, 63–64,66–69, 96–97,129–130,134–137,159, 163, 174, 185, 186, 187, 190,191

Agree, 1, 3, 71, 97–100, 102–105, 124,159, 190

agreement, 3, 12, 75, 77, 100–105,109–119, 163–183, 191, 192, 193

AgrP, 1–5, 6, 20–22, 39, 45–46, 63, 99,131–139, 159–160

anaphor, 33, 44, 143A-position, 2–3, 6, 15–16, 37–38, 45,

107, 138–139, 145, 150, 160auxiliary verbs, 7, 24, 26, 29, 48, 49,

134, 137, 191, 192

binding, 32–33, 37–38, 44, 73,143–146,149–153, 186

Brazilian Portuguese, 20, 100–105,113–115, 118–119, 142, 155–156,163–183, 185, 190, 191

Capeverdean, 20–21Case, 1, 3, 21, 39, 45, 47, 62–65, 76, 97,

99, 105, 108, 112–118, 127, 159,186

c-command, 58–59, 65, 87–91, 149, 189Celtic, 24cleft, 48–49, 52, 87, 188

climbing, 97, 100, 102–104clitic left dislocation, 12, 21, 185complementizer, 19, 26, 186contrastive, 8, 55–56, 72–74, 80–82,

85–86, 89, 94–97, 124–125, 188 control, 22, 104, 150, 190

definite, 3, 8, 17–18, 34, 62, 65, 81, 85,110, 114, 127, 153–155, 173, 175,178–179, 186

Distributed Morphology, 131–133, 175ditransitive, 141–151, 155–156D-linking, 120, 125–126doubling, 18–21, 34, 48, 52–54, 126Dutch, 8, 24, 35–45, 63, 67–69, 133,

186, 187

ellipsis, 122, 125English, 7, 9, 14, 19, 24, 27–28, 39–41,

46, 67, 72–73, 75–77, 83–84,101–102, 114–115, 132–133, 135,141–142, 181, 186, 187, 188

EPP, 12, 20–21, 127exclamative, 91–95exhaustivity, 2, 4, 16, 72, 120–125, 160expletive, 20–21, 24, 29, 113–115, 117–

119, 132–134, 138, 178–179, 181

floating quantifiers, 9, 45, 48, 51–52,163, 174, 187

focus, 1–5, 8, 18, 54–56, 58, 64–69, 74–105,107–108,112–115, 119–121,124–127, 141–145, 153–155, 159–160, 181, 188, 189, 190

focus-movement, 9, 71–78, 91–96, 154,190

French, 6–7, 9, 29, 47, 54, 176, 177, 183,186

Index

fusion, 131–132, 136

generic, 124–125German, 24, 35–45, 63, 65–69, 102,

133, 187Germanic, 3, 4, 39–45, 62,134–135,138Greek, 12, 22, 46

Head Movement Constraint, 135head-movement, 29, 131–136, 175, 192Heavy NP shift, 31, 74Hungarian, 72–76, 78, 91, 125, 188, 190

Icelandic, 24, 28, 45, 63, 102,132–133, 186, 187

if-clauses, 19indefinite, 8, 17, 34, 56, 62, 65–67, 81,

126–127, 178, 186indirect object, 52–53,142,145,149–150infinitives, 6–7, 137inflected gerunds, 22Information Structure, 1, 3, 5, 71–105,

159intransitive, 16, 64, 108–109, 111, 117,

191inversion, 3, 4, 16, 20–27, 47, 54,

71–105, 108, 111–119, 129, 142,155, 170, 174, 180–182, 185,190

Italian, 8–9, 14, 30, 64, 91–93, 113,153–155

I-to-C, 2–4, 14, 19, 23–25, 129–131,135–137, 186, 191

language acquisition, 21left-dislocation, 1–4, 6, 8,11–22, 35,107,

118, 120–127, 159–160, 185, 191locality, 4, 97–103, 141, 159locative inversion, 113–119, 181, 185

manner, 27, 66, 129, merger, 2, 131–135, 160, 163minimality, 14–15, 190

morphology, 2, 4–5, 117, 129–139, 160,163–183, 191

Move, 1, 3, 97, 105, 159, 190

negation, 14, 98, 103, 122–123 nominative, 32, 47, 108, 112–113, 115–

118, 191nuclear stress, 1, 58, 67–69, 81, 90, 141–

142, 159, 189null object, 42–43, 187null subject, 2–4, 11–22, 118, 138, 160,

181, 186

object shift, 45, 63, 99, 187optionality, 2, 4, 6, 12, 97, 107–127, 160OSV, 1, 11, 13, 79OVS, 1, 11, 79

parasitic gap, 37–38, 42–43, 45, 56, 187participle, 26, 29, 168, 171, 173–174,

176–177, 180, 191partitive, 113, 116–117passive, 21, 33, 37, 145, 168, 171–174,

180phase, 4, 97–102, 159possessive, 33, 44, 141, 153–155, 165–

167, 173–174, 178–179, 182, 192postverbal, 3–4, 19–21, 23–70, 75, 96,

100, 109–118, 122, 191PP, 27, 36, 39, 43, 45, 75, 85, 88, 93,

96, 142, 148–149, 151, 186pragmatic, 38predicative, 21, 37, 43–44, 171–172preposing, 13, 48–50, 72, 92–96, 190preverbal, 2–4, 11–22, 35, 53, 60, 100,

107–118, 121, 122, 125–127, 129,136, 155, 160, 186

pro, 20–21, 115, 119, 156, 186PRO, 150, 190pro-drop, 20pronominal, 12,18–22, 30–32, 34, 37, 45,

48, 52–53, 56, 73, 77, 85, 100,116–117, 126, 130, 154, 187, 192

210 Index

prosody, 1, 3, 5, 58, 78, 83, 88, 105, 141,153, 159, 189

QP, 14, 33, 37, 44, 65, 186, 190

raising, 17, 22, 65, 191reconstruction, 15, 59, 151remnant movement, 3, 35, 47–62, 187right-adjunction, 27

Scandinavian, 45, 63scope, 15, 48, 58–59, 65–69, 146, 185scrambling, 3, 8, 30, 33, 35–69, 79, 90,

99, 144–145, 150, 186, 187small clause, 37, 43, 168, 173–174, 180Spanish, 12, 22, 46–47, 55Spec,IP, 3, 5, 9, 11–22, 23–27, 35, 46–

47, 51–52, 60–61, 64–65, 71,78–79, 88, 97, 101, 103, 108, 113,116–119, 124, 126–127, 144, 156,185, 190

Spec,VP, 1, 3, 5, 16, 20, 23–35, 38,47–67, 71, 78–79, 97–99, 105,144, 151, 159, 191

specificity, 38, 62–63, 65, 126–127, 187Spell-Out, 5, 175stress, 1, 3, 8, 14, 55, 58, 67–69, 78,

81–91, 141–143, 153–157, 159–160, 187, 188, 189

subject-oriented, 26–27, 129–130, 136–137

SVO, 1–4, 11–22, 39, 59, 78, 81–83,86–90, 97, 107, 109, 119–127,144, 159–160, 189, 190

tag, 31, 33, 34, 48, 52–53, 95topicalization, 12, 56–58, 61–62, 79, 81,

94–65, 126, 136–137, 185, 190 TP, 1–5, 26–27, 47–48, 52, 59, 103–104,

129–139, 159–160Transitive Expletive Constructions, 24,

132–134, 138

unaccusative, 20–22, 64–65, 107–119,155, 167, 170–173, 180–181, 185,190, 191, 193

unmarked, 11, 15–16, 21, 81–90, 107–108, 112, 145–147, 189, 190

verb movement, 4, 7–9, 27, 39–40, 133,135, 163–164, 174–175, 182–183

Verb-second, 24, 133, 186VOS, 1, 3, 11, 23, 30–70, 79, 82, 84,

87–88, 90, 109, 144–145, 150–152, 187

VSO, 1, 3, 4, 11, 21, 23–35, 78, 82, 87–90, 97, 99, 109, 119–127, 144–145, 159, 189

wh-questions, 4, 18, 27, 47, 55–56, 58,93, 107, 119–127, 130, 135, 160,187

Index 211

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Subject Positions And Interfaces: The Case Of European Portuguese (Studies in Generative Grammar)

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