Topics, Subjects and Grammatical Change: from Classical to Modern European Portuguese

Silvia Regina De Oliveira Cavalcante,Charlotte Galves,Maria Clara Paixão De Sousa

doi:10.24206/lh.v1i2.4796

Abstract

This paper presents a diachronic account of the syntax of subjects in Portuguese by comparing three different constructions -- active, canonical passives and SE-constructions -- relating the change in the position of subjects to the loss of V2. In the V2 grammar, in which the pre-verbal position is associated with fronted elements, and non-fronted subjects remain in post-verbal position, we see the same patterns of word order in SE-constructions as in active and canonical passive sentences; in the (X)SVO grammar, in which the subject is associated with the preverbal position and the fronted elements occupy the left periphery of the clause, active and canonical passives show a significant increase of pre-verbal subjects, whereas SE-constructions remain alike with respect to word order. We interpret this result as evidence for analyzing the internal argument of SE-constructions as a complement rather than a subject.

Highlights

Recent work has shown that the change to EP SV syntax can be seen in texts written by the generations born in the first half of the 18th century: Galves and Paixão de Sousa (2015) attest that the proportion of postverbal subjects fall from an average of 21% - 35% in the 16th and 17th centuries to an average of 12%-11% in the 18th and 19th centuries, while the proportion of pre-verbal subjects increases from an average of 18%-17% in the 16th and 17th centuries to an average of 41%-34% in the 18th and 19th centuries
Does not follow the general pattern of change attested for the subject position, as we show in this paper: the so-called "passive" SE-construction
This paper presents a diachronic account of the syntax of subjects in Portuguese by comparing three different constructions relating these two phenomena – change in the position of subjects and in SE-constructions – to one single parametric change: the loss of V2/V-to-C

Summary

Introduction

Portuguese provides an interesting field for comparative/historical syntax, with respect to the syntax of subjects: in Modern European Portuguese ( EP), the general pattern as regards the position of lexical subjects is comparable to the pattern observed in other null-subject Romance languages, with generalized SV and the possibility of VS in Romance inversion (AMBAR, 1992; COSTA, 2004); in Portuguese texts written up to the 18th century the immediate pre-verbal position is reserved for pragmatically prominent constituents, regardless of their syntactic status as subjects, complements, or other – in other words, there is evidence of a "V2-like” grammar, which has in common with the Germanic V2 languages the movement of the verb to a high position, in the C layer, and differs from them with respect to the obrigatory movement of a phrase to the preverbal position (cf. RIBEIRO, 1995, for Old Portuguese; TORRES MORAES, 1995; GALVES, 1996; PAIXÃO DE! SOUSA, 2004 and GALVES; PAIXÃO DE SOUSA, 2015, for Classical Portuguese). This comparative study leads to the following prediction, based on the available data from active sentences: (a) if preposed constituents (either subjects or objects) are topicalized in 16th-17th century Portuguese because of their prominent informational status; (b) if, along the time, the frequency of VS falls, giving rise to generalized SV; and (c) if we assume that the change does not affect the frequency of topic prominent elements - word order will present frequency alterations only in

Results

Conclusion