Browsing by Author "Pratas, Fernanda"
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- A alomorfia dos pronomes de objeto em caboverdianoPublication . Salanova, Andrés Pablo; Pratas, FernandaIn Capeverdean, object pronominals can be phonological enclitics or free-standing forms, either in accusative or dative contexts. Crucially, pronominal enclitic forms are ruled out on verbs carrying the past suffix -ba. This fact has been analysed (Baptista, 2002) as being related to the banning of clitic clusters. In this view, the affix -ba is considered a clitic, barring other enclitics. A problem of this view is that -ba has to be stipulated to be a clitic, where there is no evidence for this. In this paper, we propose a phonological solution to these Capeverdean facts, based on the following two elements, independently justified: (i) a simple stress rule for the language; (ii) a filter against shifting the stress out of the verb stem. If our phonologically based proposal is correct, it gives support to the distributed morphology framework (Halle e Marantz, 1993): morphemes are bundles of abstract (syntactic-semantic) features that are provided with phonological features at Vocabulary Insertion (VI), which is conditioned by phonological rules and constraints.
- Capeverdean reflexives: the importance of a silent VoicePublication . Pratas, FernandaIn Capeverdean, a Portuguese-based Creole language, many reflexive contexts do not show any overt reflexive expression. This is the case of transitive verbs like bisti ‘dress’ in simple clauses: Ana bisti ‘Ana has dressed herself’. This is a perplexing fact, given that there is an anaphor of the SELF-type available in the language: (si) kabesa — literally ‘his/her head’ —, meaning ‘himself/ herself’, which participates in reflexive clauses with other verbs. The current paper explores this puzzle, ending with a proposal supported empirically and also by recent studies for other languages. This novel analysis goes as follows: all Capeverdean finite sentences, except unaccusatives, have a Voice head, responsible for assigning external theta-roles. This also includes middles, passives and this type of reflexives. It is this Voice head that, in spite of being silent, attracts the internal argument to a preverbal position and provides the interpretation for an implicit external argument, which is syntactically active.
- Clitic production by Portuguese and Capeverdean children: omission in bilingualismPublication . Costa, João; Lobo, Maria; Pratas, FernandaOmission of clitics is often considered a critical marker of language development in children. For this reason, clitic omission in language development has been studied crosslinguistically. Results on clitic production reveal that languages differ with respect to the rates at which clitics are omitted by children, as well as on the duration of the clitic omission stages. This paper compares clitic omission by monolingual and bilingual children acquiring European Portuguese – a language with both clitics and null objects - and Capeverdean Creole – a language with clitics in which null objects are ruled out. We show that omission is only found in monolingual Portuguese, and in bilingual Capeverdean. These results confirm earlier findings on the precocious sensitivity to the availability of null objects, and signal object drop as a critical distinguishing factor for differentiating bilinguals and monolinguals.
- Comitative Coordination in CapeverdeanPublication . Brito, José António; Matos, Gabriela; Pratas, FernandaComitative coordination in Capevedean, a Portuguese-based Creole language, differs from comitative coordination in Portuguese and other European languages by the wider range of syntactic categories it conjoins and its insensitivity to the lexical-semantic selection of the main verb. In this respect Capeverdean behaves like with-languages. However, the comitative conjunction ku may not coordinate adjectival or tensed verbal predicates, as well as finite sentences. In this paper it is claimed that the widespread occurrence of ku in Capeverdean is due to its full grammaticalized status as a conjunction, and its impossibility to conjoin predicates and tensed domains is imputed to its comitative meaning: ku conjoins referential arguments or properties to derive a group entity or a compound property; it is excluded from contexts that denote related but independent properties or events and situations.
- Comitative Coordination in CapeverdeanPublication . Brito, José António; Matos, Gabriela; Pratas, Fernanda
- Construções comparativas em português: porque algumas são mais iguais que outrasPublication . Pereira, Sandra; Pinto, Clara; Pratas, FernandaIn Portuguese comparative constructions of inequality, either do que or que may be the syntactic heads of the Degree Clause. There are, however, differences in their distribution: do que is allowed in all contexts, whereas que is barred whenever the Degree Clause includes a finite verb phonologically realized. In the present paper we claim that all canonical comparative constructions in European Portuguese include two full clauses and that, whenever some constituents of the Degree Clause are phonologically null, what we have is a case of ellipsis, whose extent is different for do que and que.
- Construções comparativas em português: porque algumas são mais iguais que outras.Publication . Pereira, Sandra; Pinto, Clara; Pratas, FernandaIn Portuguese comparative constructions of inequality, either do que or que may be the syntactic heads of the Degree Clause. There are, however, differences in their distribution: do que is allowed in all contexts, whereas que is barred whenever the Degree Clause includes a finite verb phonologically realized. In the present paper we claim that all canonical comparative constructions in European Portuguese include two full clauses and that, whenever some constituents of the Degree Clause are phonologically null, what we have is a case of ellipsis, whose extent is different for do que and que.
- Contacto e variação em caboverdiano: uma questão de tempoPublication . Pratas, FernandaEste artigo foca-se num fenómeno particular de variação morfossintática em cabo-verdiano: a expressão do passado no progressivo e no habitual. A descrição dos dados relevantes e as ques-tões levantadas, no âmbito das hipóteses teóricas que localizam as fontes de variação linguística no domínio funcional da frase, desafiam a universalidade da projeção sintática de Tempo, TP. Quanto a este último ponto, a proposta ainda em fase de elaboração é que, até ao momento, tudo parece assinalar um continuum linguístico, no qual as duas variedades em análise assumem posições distintas: numa delas, a de Barlavento, não existe evidência empírica a justificar essa projeção; na outra, a de Sotavento, essa evidência parece resumir-se ao morfema de passado -ba. O trabalho em curso deverá mostrar, num futuro próximo, se esta hipótese está no caminho certo.
- Elements of denial in Capeverdean: the negator ka and the properties of n-wordsPublication . Pratas, FernandaThis paper deals with the expression of negation in Capeverdean. More specifically, it aims at showing that this Portuguese-based Creole is a strict Negative Concord language. In fact, n-words (Laka 1990) like ningen ‘no.one’ and nada ‘nothing’ always co-occur with sentential negation, be they in preverbal or postverbal position. This means that they are prohibited in all non-negative clauses, including modal contexts. Syntactically, they show a behavior typical of weak Negative Polarity Items (NPIs), which are variable underspecified for negative features (Martins 2000). Following Giannakidou (2002), I will propose that, semantically, these Capeverdean n-words are universal quantifiers with no intrinsic negative meaning. Finally, I briefly address the adverbs tioxi and nunka, which roughly mean ‘never’, and show that whereas the former is also a weak NPI but not a quantifier, the latter may be ambiguous between a strong and a weak NPI and seems to be a quantifier.
- Foreword: challenging the frontiers between "nations"Publication . Pratas, Fernanda; Pereira, Sandra; Pinto, Clara