Home Animacy in the Brazilian Portuguese null object
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Animacy in the Brazilian Portuguese null object

  • Rafael Camacho Ramírez ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: April 30, 2025

Abstract

This article focuses on one aspect of the Brazilian Portuguese (BP hereafter) direct object ellipsis. In BP animate direct objects cannot be elided when they are definite. Using feature geometry (Harley, Heidi & Elizabeth Ritter. 2002. Person and number in pronouns. Language 78. 482–526) as a theoretical tool, I propose that the interaction between the features responsible for animacy and the features responsible for definiteness in the verb allow to explain such a restriction. Crucially, the organizing node class (related to animacy, and which is the main feature in the ellipsis operation) would have suffered an impoverishment in BP. This impoverishment (an operation that deletes morphosyntactic features post-syntactically) would cause that certain objects cannot be elided. The proposed interaction between animacy features and grammaticalized pragmatic features (specificity, definiteness) makes it feasible to explicitly relate the operation of nominal ellipsis to other phenomena such as differential object marking (DOM).


Corresponding author: Rafael Camacho Ramírez, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their very valuable comments. All errors are my own.

References

Béjar, Susan. 2003. Phi-syntax: A theory of agreement. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Bonet, Eulàlia. 1995. Feature structure of Romance clitics. Natural Language Linguist Theory 13. 607–647. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00992853.Search in Google Scholar

Borer, Hagit. 1984. Parametric syntax. Dordrecht: The Netherlands: Foris.10.1515/9783110808506Search in Google Scholar

Bošković, Željko. 2018. On pronouns, clitic doubling, and argument ellipsis: Argument ellipsis as predicate ellipsis. English Linguistics 35. 1–37. https://doi.org/10.9793/elsj.35.1_1.Search in Google Scholar

Brugè, Laura & Gerhard Brugger. 1996. On the accusative a in Spanish. Probus 8. 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1515/prbs.1996.8.1.1.Search in Google Scholar

Camacho Ramírez, Rafael. 2019. Marcación diferencial de objeto y doblado de clíticos en el español de Lima. São Paulo, SP, Brazil: Universidade de São Paulo dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Camacho Ramírez, Rafael. 2022. Differential object marking and labeling in Spanish. Languages 7. 114. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020114.Search in Google Scholar

Camacho Ramírez, Rafael. 2023. Differential object marking in inanimate objects in Spanish. Borealis. An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 12. 165–206. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.12.1.6951.Search in Google Scholar

Carvalho, Danniel. 2010. Geometria de traços e a sintaxe de pronomes no português brasileiro. In Ana M. Brito, Maria de Fátima Henriques da Silva, João Veloso & Alexandra Fiéis (eds.), XXV Encontro nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística. Textos selecionados, 243–258. Porto: Tip. Nunes Lda.Search in Google Scholar

Carvalho, Janayna & Ana Calindro. 2018. A unified account for the loss of third person clitics in Brazilian Portuguese. In Danniel Carvalho & Dorothy Brito (eds.), Pronomes: morfologia e semântica, 91–110. Salvador: Edufba.Search in Google Scholar

Casagrande, Sabrina. 2009. A correlação entre aspecto e objeto no PB: uma análise sintático-aquisicionista. Campinas, SP, Brazil: Universidade Estadual de Campinas dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Cerqueira, Fernanda de Oliveira. 2019. O pronome pleno de terceira pessoa: estrutura interna e relações referenciais. Salvador, BA, Brazil: Universidade Federal da Bahia dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Roger Martin, David Michaels, Juan Uriagereka & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/4056.003.0004Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 2013. Problems of projection. Lingua 130. 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2012.12.003.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 2015. Problems of projection: Extensions. In Elisa Di Domenico, Cornelia Hamann & Simona Matteini (eds.), Structures, strategies and beyond: Studies in honor of Adriana Belletti, 1–16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.223.01choSearch in Google Scholar

Coene, Martine. 2005. On the acquisition of the indefinite article: A cross-linguistic study of French, Italian, Romanian and Spanish child speech. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 19. 121–143. https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.19.07coe.Search in Google Scholar

Cowper, Elizabeth & Daniel Hall. 2003. The syntactic manifestation of nominal feature Geometry. In Sophie Burelle & Stanca Somesfalean (eds.), Proceedings of Canadian Linguistics Association, 55–66. Montreal: Cahiers Linguistiques de l’UQAM.Search in Google Scholar

Cyrino, Sonia. 1994. O objeto nulo no português brasileiro –um estudo sintático-diacrônico. Campinas, SP, Brazil: University of Campinas dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Cyrino, Sonia. 2016. Sobre o papel da animacidade na realização do objeto. Paper presented at the Colóquios em Sintaxe, Aquisição e Mudança. Brazil: University of Campinas.Search in Google Scholar

Cyrino, Sonia. 2017. Reflexões sobre a marcação morfológica do objeto direto por A em português brasileiro. Estudos linguísticos e literários 58. 83–103. https://doi.org/10.9771/ell.v0i58.26807.Search in Google Scholar

Cyrino, Sonia. 2020. Objetos nulos em português brasileiro. Cuadernos de la ALFAL 12(2). 387–410.Search in Google Scholar

Cyrino, Sonia. 2021. Brazilian Portuguese null objects and Spanish differential object marking. In András Bárány, Theresa Biberauer, Jamie Douglas & Sten Vikner (eds.), Syntactic architecture and its consequences III: Inside syntax, 399–427. Berlin: Language Science Press.Search in Google Scholar

Cyrino, Sonia & Maria Teresa Espinal. 2015. Bare nominals in Brazilian Portuguese: More on the DP/NP analysis. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 33(2). 471–521. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-014-9264-6.Search in Google Scholar

Cyrino, Sonia & Ruth Lopes. 2016. Null objects are ellipsis in Brazilian Portuguese. The Linguistic Review 33(4). 483–502. https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2016-0012.Search in Google Scholar

Cyrino, Sonia & Gabriela Matos. 2002. VP ellipsis in European and Brazilian Portuguese: A comparative analysis. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 1(2). 177–196. https://doi.org/10.5334/jpl.41.Search in Google Scholar

Duarte, Maria Eugenia. 1986. Variação e sintaxe: clítico acusativo, pronome lexical e categoria vazia no Português do Brasil. São Paulo, SP, Brazil: Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo MA thesis.Search in Google Scholar

Duarte, Maria Eugenia. 1993. Do pronome nulo ao pronome pleno: A trajetória do sujeito no Português do Brasil. In Ian Roberts & Mary Kato (eds.), Português Brasileiro: uma viagem diacrônica, 107–128. Campinas, SP, Brazil: Editora da UNICAMP.Search in Google Scholar

Duarte, Maria Eugenia. 2023. Sobre algumas consequências do enfraquecimento da categoria concordância no português brasileiro. Lingue e Linguaggi 57.Search in Google Scholar

Enç, Mürvet. 1991. The semantics of specificity. Linguistic Inquiry 22. 1–26.Search in Google Scholar

Fábregas, Antonio. 2013. Differential object marking in Spanish: State of the art. Borealis An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 2. 1–80. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.2.2.2603.Search in Google Scholar

Farrell, Patrick. 1990. Null objects in Brazilian Portuguese. The Linguistic Review 8. 325–346. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00135617.Search in Google Scholar

Ferreira, Marcelo. 2000. Argumentos nulos em português brasileiro. Campinas, SP, Brazil: Universidade Estadual de Campinas dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Ferreira, Marcelo. 2021. Bare nominals in Brazilian Portuguese. In Patricia Cabredo Hofherr & Jenny Doetjes (eds.), Oxford handbook of grammatical number, 497–521. Oxford, UK: OUP.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198795858.013.24Search in Google Scholar

Galves, Charllote. 1993. O enfraquecimento da concordância no Português brasileiro. In Mary Kato & Ian Roberts (eds.), Português Brasileiro: uma viagem diacrônica, 387–408. Campinas, SP, Brazil: Editora da UNICAMP.Search in Google Scholar

Galves, Charllote. 2001. O objeto nulo e a estrutura da sentença em português brasileiro. In Charllote Galves (ed.), Ensaios sobre as gramáticas do português, 73–96. Campinas, SP, Brazil: Editora da UNICAMP.Search in Google Scholar

Galves, Charllote. 2019. Revisitando a concordância no português brasileiro. In Charllote Galves, Mary Kato & Ian Roberts (eds.), Português Brasileiro: uma segunda viagem diacrônica, 127–150. Campinas, SP, Brazil: Editora da UNICAMP.Search in Google Scholar

Halle, Morris & Alec Marantz. 1993. Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. In Ken Hale & Jay Keyser (eds.), The view from building 20, 111–176. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Halle, Morris & Alec Marantz. 1994. Some key features of distributed morphology. In Andrew Carnie & Heidi Harley (eds.), MITWPL 27: Papers on phonology and morphology, 275–288. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Harley, Heidi & Elizabeth Ritter. 2002. Person and number in pronouns. Language 78. 482–526. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2002.0158.Search in Google Scholar

Harris, James. 1995. The morphology of Spanish clitics. In Hector Campos & Paula Kempchinsky (eds.), Evolution and revolution in linguistic theory, 168–197. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kato, Mary Aizawa. 1993. The distribution of null and pronominal objects in Brazilian Portuguese. In William Ashby, Marianne Mithun & Giorgio Perissinoto (eds.), Linguistic perspectives on Romance languages: Selected papers from the XXI linguistic symposium on Romance languages, 225–235. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.103.23katSearch in Google Scholar

Kato, Mary Aizawa. 2011. A natureza do objeto nulo e do nome nulo no português europeu e no português brasileiro. Revista Intercâmbio 23. 13–27.Search in Google Scholar

Kato, Mary, Ana Maria Martins & Jairo Nunes. 2023. The syntax of Portuguese. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9780511842931Search in Google Scholar

Keine, Stefan. 2010. Case and agreement from Fringe to core: A minimalist approach. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110234404Search in Google Scholar

Keine, Stefan & Gereon Müller. 2020. Impoverishment. Retrieved from: https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005025.Search in Google Scholar

Lahne, Antje. 2008. Where there is fire there is smoke. Local modelling of successive-cyclic movement. Leipzig: Universität Leipzig dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Landau, Idan. 2018. Missing objects in Hebrew: Argument ellipsis, not VP ellipsis. Glossa 3(1). 1–37. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.560.Search in Google Scholar

López, Luis. 2012. Indefinite objects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9165.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Matos, Gabriela. 1992. Construções de elipse do predicado em português: SV nulo e despojamento. Lisbon: Universidade de Lisboa dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Merchant, Jason. 2016. Ellipsis: A survey of analytical approaches. In Jeroen van Craenenbroeck & Tanja Temmerman (eds.), Handbook of ellipsis, 19–45. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198712398.013.2Search in Google Scholar

Murphy, Andrew. 2016. Subset relations in ellipsis licensing. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 1(1). 44. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.61.Search in Google Scholar

Næss, Åshild. 2004. What markedness marks: The markedness problem with direct objects. Lingua 114. 1186–1212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2003.07.005.Search in Google Scholar

Nunes, Jairo. 1993. Direção de cliticização, objeto nulo e pronome tônico na posição de objeto em português brasileiro. In Ian Roberts & Mary Kato (eds.), Português brasileiro: uma viagem diacrônica, 207–222. Campinas, SP, Brazil: Editora da UNICAMP.Search in Google Scholar

Nunes, Jairo. 2019. Clíticos acusativos de terceira pessoa em português brasileiro como concordância de objeto. In Charllote Galves, M Mary Kato & Ian Roberts (eds.), Português Brasileiro: uma segunda viagem diacrônica, 151–172. Campinas, SP, Brazil: Editora da UNICAMP.Search in Google Scholar

Nunes, Jairo & Cynthia Zocca. 2009. Lack of morphological identity and ellipsis resolution in Brazilian Portuguese. In Jairo Nunes (ed.), Minimalist essays on Brazilian Portuguese syntax, 215–236. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.142.13nunSearch in Google Scholar

Panitz, Ezekiel. 2023. Brazilian Portuguese argument ellipsis: A hidden case of clitic doubling. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 9. 1–47. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.348.Search in Google Scholar

Pereira, Maria das Graças. 1981. A Variação na Colocação dos Pronomes Átonos no Português do Brasil. São Paulo, SP, Brazil: Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo MA thesis.Search in Google Scholar

Pérez Silva, Jorge. 2000. Distribución y estructura interna de los clíticos del español: análisis de cuatro fenómenos desde la Morfología Distribuida. Lexis 24(2). 259–281. https://doi.org/10.18800/lexis.200002.002.Search in Google Scholar

Pires, Aline. 2017. A marcação diferencial do objeto no português: um estudo sintático- diacrônico. Campinas, SPA, Brazil: Universidade Estadual de Campinas MA thesis Retrieved from: repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/330382.Search in Google Scholar

Preminger, Omar. 2014. Agreement and its failures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262027403.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Ramos, Jania. 1992. Marcação de caso e mudança sintática no português do Brasil: uma abordagem gerativa e variacionista. Campinas, SPA, Brazil: Universidade Estadual de Campinas dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Richards, Marc. 2008. Defective agree, case alternations and the prominence of person. In Marc Richards & Andrej Malchukov (Org.) (eds.), Scales. Linguistiche Arbeits Berichte Universität Leipzig, vol. 86, 137–161. Leipzig: Universität Leipzig.Search in Google Scholar

Rodríguez-Mondoñedo, Miguel. 2007. The syntax of objects: Agree and differential object marking. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Saab, Andrés L. 2008. Hacia una teoría de la identidad parcial en la elipsis. Buenos Aires: University of Buenos Aires dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Sánchez, Liliana. 2006. Clitic-doubling and the checking of focus. Unpublished manuscript. Rutgers University.Search in Google Scholar

Sánchez, Liliana. 2010. La aparente opcionalidad del doblado de clíticos en el español de Lima. Cuadernos de la ALFAL 1. 94–105.Search in Google Scholar

Schwenter, Scott. 2006. Null objects across South America. In Timothy L. Face & Carol A. Klee (eds.), Selected proceedings of the 8th Hispanic linguistics symposium, 23–36. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.Search in Google Scholar

Suñer, Margarita. 1988. The role of agreement in clitic-doubled constructions. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 6. 391–434. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00133904.Search in Google Scholar

Tarallo, Fernando. 1983. Relativization strategies in Brazilian Portuguese. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Torrego, Esther. 1998. The dependencies of objects. Linguistic inquiry monographs, vol. 34. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/2337.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Uriagereka, Juan. 1995. Aspects of the syntax of clitic placement in Western Romance. Linguistic Inquiry 26. 79–123.Search in Google Scholar

von Heusinger, Klaus. 2002. Specificity and definiteness in sentence and discourse structure. Journal of Semantics 19. 245–274. https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/19.3.245.Search in Google Scholar

Zdrojewski, Pablo. 2023. CASO/A/CASO. Una teoría para la marcación diferencial de objetos del español. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2025-04-30
Published in Print: 2025-05-26

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 3.10.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/shll-2025-2003/html
Scroll to top button