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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2018: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 32, Utrecht
Edited by Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen and Luisa Meroni
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 357] 2021
► pp. 171–190

Chapter 9
Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages

| Universidade de Lisboa
| Universidade de São Paulo

This paper rethinks Holmberg’s (2005) characterization of partial vs. consistent null subject languages (NSL) based on data from Brazilian and European Portuguese, the former a partial, the latter a consistent NSL. The paper proposes that rather than overt morphological distinctions, what is relevant for null subject licensing is the underlying feature specification of the verbal inflection, after agreement between T and a pronominal subject values the relevant person/number/gender/Case feature. Hence, only close inspection of the pronominal and agreement systems of individual NSLs permits an adequate characterization of them, for the same language may behave as a ‘partial’, ‘consistent’, or ‘radical’ NSL depending on the morphological feature specification of its nominative pronouns and T heads.

Keywords: null subjects, consistent/partial pro-drop languages, ellipsis, verbal agreement morphology, pronominal system, feature valuation, feature prominence, person, number, gender, case
Article outline
  • 1.Consistent, partial, and radical pro-drop languages: Questions and aim of the paper
  • 2.A fine-grained investigation on verbal agreement and null subject licensing in BP and EP
  • 3.Null subjects without ‘rich agreement’: Participial clauses
  • 4.Null subjects without ϕ-agreement: Gerund clauses
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.357.09mar
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