Chapter published in:
Studies on Variation in Portuguese
Edited by Pilar P. Barbosa, Maria da Conceição de Paiva and Celeste Rodrigues
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 14] 2017
► pp. 200–217

Clitic climbing in the speech of Braga and Lisbon

| University of Minho, Portugal
| Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
| Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In European Portuguese, clitic pronouns can be attached to the highest verb in certain verbal clusters, a process known as clitic climbing (CC). According to some authors (Magro, 2005), CC is more productive in the Northern varieties of European Portuguese. In this chapter, we present and discuss the findings of a comparative analysis of Braga and Lisbon oral speech. Our main claim is that CC is a stable variation phenomenon. By means of a multivariate analysis, we show that CC is more frequent than attachment of the clitic to the infinitive in the two varieties. Moreover, we discuss evidence in favor of the claim that this syntactic variation presents the same configuration in both varieties: it is lexically constrained and not socially marked.
Keywords: restructuring, clitic climbing, linguistic and social factors
Published online: 02 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.14.08bar
References

References

Andrade, A.
(2010) A subida de clíticos em Português: Um estudo sobre a variedade europeia dos séculos XVI a XX. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universidade de Campinas, São Paulo.Google Scholar
Barbosa, P.
(1996) Clitic placement in European Portuguese and the position of subjects. In A. Halpern and A. Zwicky (Eds.), Approaching second: Second position clitics and related phenomena (pp. 1–40). Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Barbosa, P., & Raposo, E. P.
(2013) A subordinação argumental infinitiva. In E. B. P. Raposo, M. F. B. Nascimento, M. A. C. Mota, L. Segura, & A. Mendes (Orgs.), Gramática do Português (Vol. 2, pp. 1901–1977). Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.Google Scholar
Burzio, L.
(1986) Italian Syntax: A government-binding approach. Dodrecht: Kluwer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cardinaletti, A., & Shlonsky, U.
(2004) Clitic positions and restructuring in Italian. Linguistic Inquiry, 35(4), 519–557. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, G.
(2001) Restructuring and the order of aspectual and root modal heads. In G. Cinque & G. Salvi (Eds.), Current studies in Italian syntax (pp. 137–155). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Cintra, L. F. L.
(1971) Estudos de dialectologia portuguesa. Lisboa: Sá da Costa.Google Scholar
Duarte, I.
(2003) Padrões de colocação dos pronomes clíticos. In M. H. M. Mateus, A. M. Brito, I. Duarte, I. H. Faria, S. Frota, G., Matos, … & A. Villava (Eds.), Gramática da língua portuguesa (5th ed., pp. 847–867). Lisboa: Ed. Caminho.Google Scholar
Fiéis, A., & Madeira, A.
(2014) Predicados de controlo na diacronia do Português. Paper presented at the twenty seventh National meeting of Associação Portuguesa de Linguística, Lisboa. Retrieved from www​.clunl​.edu​.pt​/resources​/…​/fieis%20​&%20madeira%20(2012)​.pdf.
Gonçalves, A.
(1996) Aspectos da Sintaxe dos verbos auxiliares do Português Europeu. In A. Gonçalves, M. Colaço, M. Miguel, & T. Móia (Eds.), Quatro estudos em Sintaxe do Português: Uma abordagem segundo a teoria dos princípios e parâmetros (pp. 7–50). Lisboa: Colibri.Google Scholar
(1999) Predicados complexos verbais em contextos de infinitivo não preposicionado do Português Europeu. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Lisbon.Google Scholar
(2002) Verbos auxiliares e verbos de reestruturação no Português Europeu. In I. M. Duarte, J. Barbosa, S. Matos, & T. Hüsgen (Orgs.), Actas do encontro comemorativo dos 25 Anos do Centro de Linguística da Universidade do Porto (Vol. 2, pp. 45–57). Porto: Universidade do Porto,Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S.
(1991) Romance clitics, verb movement and PRO. Linguistic Inquiry, 22, 647–686.Google Scholar
Labov, W.
(1994) Principles of linguistic change, Volume II: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Magro, C.
(2005) Introdutores de orações infinitivas: O que diz a Sintaxe dos clíticos. In I. Duarte & I. Leiria (Eds.), Actas do XX Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística (pp. 649–664). Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Linguística.Google Scholar
Martins, A. M.
(1994) Clíticos na história do Português. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Lisbon.Google Scholar
(2000[1995]) A minimalist approach to clitic climbing. In J. Costa (Ed.), Portuguese Syntax: New comparative studies (pp. 169–190). Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
(2006) Aspects of infinitival constructions in the history of Portuguese. In R. S. Gess & D. Arteaga (Eds.), Historical Romance linguistics: Retrospective and perspectives (pp. 327–355). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Raposo, E.
(1989) Prepositional infinitival constructions in European Portuguese. In O. Jaeggli & K. Safir (Eds.), The Null Subject Parameter (pp. 277–305). Dordrecht: Kluwer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, L.
(1982) Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, I.
(1998) Restructuring, head movement and locality. Linguistic Inquiry, 28, 423–460.Google Scholar
Rouveret, A.
(1997)  Bod in the present tense and in other tenses. In R. D. Borsley & I. G. Roberts (Eds.), The syntax of the Celtic languages: A comparative perspective (pp.125–170). Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Sankoff, D., Tagliamonte, S., & Smith, E.
(2005) Goldvarb X: A variable rule application for Macintosh and Windows. Toronto: Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Segura, L.
(2013) Variedades dialetais do Português Europeu. In E. B. P. Raposo, M. F. B. Nascimento, M. A. da Mota, L. Segura, & A. Mendes (Eds.), Gramática do Português (Vol. 1, pp. 85–144). Coimbra. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.Google Scholar
Vieira, S. R., & Corrêa, C. M. M.
(2012) A ordem dos clíticos em complexos verbais na sincronia atual: Uma regra variável? Signum, 15(12), 357–380. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wurmbrand, S.
(2001) Infinitives: Restructuring and clause structure. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Zanuttini, R.
(1997) Negation and clausal structure. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Flores, Cristina & Esther Rinke
2020. The relevance of language-internal variation in predicting heritage language grammars. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23:1 ► pp. 25 ff. Crossref logo
Rinke, Esther & Cristina Flores
2021. Portuguese as Heritage Language in Germany—A Linguistic Perspective. Languages 6:1 ► pp. 10 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 05 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.