Ellipsis and Restructuring in European Portuguese

In this paper we propose that, in European Portuguese, the complementary distribution between Null Complement Anaphora (NCA) and Restructuring (also noted by Brucart 1999 and Depiante 2001, for Spanish and Italian) results from the selectional properties of the verbs that accept these constructions: NCA corresponds to active T domains at the level of semantic interpretation, and is selected by verbs with intrinsic lexical content, while Restructuring involves a biclausal sentential structure, headed by a functional or a lexical verb occupying a T projection, and requires the embedded T to be syntactically inactive.

Published online: 19 November 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.1.06gon