Series | SAIL
Edited book | Journeys in Portuguese Language
Chapter | Indeterminação do sujeito no português brasileiro: o pessoal tá inventando moda

Indeterminação do sujeito no português brasileiro: o pessoal tá inventando moda

Abstract

This paper describes and analyses a new strategy of subject indetermination in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The new strategy presents generic noun phrases, such as tu/você (‘you’), a gente (‘we’), o cara (‘the guy’), a pessoa (‘the person’), etc., in the subject position without an explicit referent. We argue that the type of sentence addressed in this study is devoid of referentiality. Its emergence seems to have to do with the fall of the clitic se, on the one hand, and with the need to fill the pre-verbal position, on the other.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: Oct. 2, 2019 | Accepted: July 28, 2020 | Published Dec. 9, 2020 | Language: pt

Keywords IndeterminationBrazilian PortugueseGeneric noun phrasesSubject syntax


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