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Complement Clauses in Portuguese: Syntax and acquisition
Edited by Ana Lúcia Santos and Anabela Gonçalves
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 17] 2018
► pp. 213–240

Subjunctive and subject obviation in Portuguese

| University of Lisbon

Subject obviation refers to the impossibility of the subject of an embedded clause to be co-referent with the main clause’s subject. This is verified in complementation structures of some predicates that select the subjunctive, but not in those of other predicates. A semantic explanation is proposed, based on Giannakidou’s concept of veridicality, for why only some of the predicates that select the subjunctive mood trigger obviation.

Keywords: (subject) obviation, complement clauses, subjunctive, (non) veridicality, agentivity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Obviation and tense dependency
  • 3.Obviation and the quasi-imperative operator – Kempchinsky’s proposal
  • 4.Subjunctive and non veridicality
  • 5.Subjunctive, agentivity and obviation
    • 5.1Predicates of volition
    • 5.2Directive and causative predicates
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 16 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.17.07mar
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