Clefts without an operator in Brazilian Portuguese

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22481/el.v8i2.1128

Keywords:

Narrow and Contrastive Focus Construction, Caribbean Spanish, emnant Movement, Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

Portuguese exhibits a type of sentence which has been traditionally analyzed as the reduction of a pseudo-cleft, built up through the deletion/ erasure of the wh-operator. Similar constructions are also found in the Caribbean dialects of Spanish (CS) and analyzed as containing a null Operator. Realizing that not all pseudo-clefts with an overt wh-operator have a corresponding reduced cleft, or semi-cleft, Bosque (1999) and Camacho (2006), for CS, and Mioto (2008), for Brazilian Portuguese, propose an independent derivation for semi-clefts. This paper is another attempt at deriving reduced or semi-clefts independently of pseudo-clefts, an analysis that can account for constructions found out in BP, which are inexistent in CS. I claim that, while pseudo-clefts focalize arguments, VP or adjuncts, reduced clefts focalize only remnant VPs and VP-adjuncts.
KEYWORDS: Narrow and Contrastive Focus Construction. Caribbean Spanish. Remnant Movement. Brazilian Portuguese.

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Author Biography

Mary Kato, State University of Campinas (Unicamp/Brazil)

Mary Aizawa Kato é doutora em Linguística pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (1973). Realizou estágios de Pós-Doutorado em Harvard, UCLA , USC e U. de Maryland. Atualmente é professora titular colaboradora voluntária da Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Tem experiência na área de Linguística, com ênfase em Sintaxe Comparada, Linguística Histórica e Aquisição da Linguagem. Atua principalmente nos seguintes temas: sintaxe e discurso (tópico e foco), sintaxe e morfologia (pronomes fortes, fracos e nulos), construções-Q perguntas parciais, relativas e clivadas). Coordena atualmente o Projeto România Nova, com Francisco Ordonéz (SUNY). Participa do projeto Temático da FAPESP "Sintaxe Gerativa do Português Brasileiro na Entrada do Século XXI: Minimalismo e Interfaces", coordenado por Jairo Nunes. Orientou 26 teses de doutorado e 41 dissertações de mestrado.

References

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Published

2010-12-30

How to Cite

KATO, M. Clefts without an operator in Brazilian Portuguese. Language Studies, [S. l.], v. 8, n. 2, p. 61-77, 2010. DOI: 10.22481/el.v8i2.1128. Disponível em: https://periodicos2.uesb.br/index.php/estudosdalinguagem/article/view/1128. Acesso em: 22 nov. 2024.

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 2 (2010): Estudos da Língua(gem) - ISSN: 1982-0534

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Papers

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