PATH and semantic island; PLACE and condition of referentiality

Abstract

This paper has a theoretic object: the behavior of PATH and PLACE semantic features in Brazilian Portuguese (PB) in sentences where the subject position is fulfilled by non-agent constituents. Alternations like João temperou a carne > A carne temperou (John seasoned the meat>The meat seasoned) are contrasted by João atravessou a rua > ?A rua atravessou (John crossed the street> ? The street crossed). In the later example, PATH, maintained by the street extension, contributes to temporal development of the crossing event; and this is a semantic constraint. PLACE, on the other hand, allows for more readings: Firmino entrou a bola no gol and Ele correu os meninos da sala (Firmino entered the ball into the goal and He ran the boys out of the room). Even in non-explicit agent sentences, this feature facilitates interpretation: Maria secou a roupa no varal > O varal secou a roupa (Mary dried dresses at the clothes-line > The clothes-line dried the dresses). These phenomena are traditionally called ‘causative alternation’, ‘causativization of intransitives’ and ‘locative inversion’, and have been widely investigated (NAVES; LUNGUINHO, 2013; CANÇADO; AMARAL, 2010; NEGRÃO; VIOTTI, 2011). But our aim is to choose an alternative theory that could give us a generalized approach, as in the nanosyntax approach (STARKE, 2009; RAMCHAND, 2008, 2017; RAMCHAND; SVENONIOUS, 2014; PANTCHEVA, 2009, 2011; CAHA, 2009; and at PB, FEREIRA, 2017, PIRES, 2016). Production and comprehension data from PB acquisition corroborate the hypothesis that PATH is a constraint, and PLACE is a collaborative feature for movements.  

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31513/linguistica.2019.v15n3a28475