O redobro de clítico no português brasileiro dialetal

Abstract

This dissertation investigates Clitic Doubling (CD) structures in dialectal Brazilian Portuguese (BP), taking into account oral and written data from the state of Minas Gerais. Under a formal syntax perspective, four core problems are discussed: (i) the optionality of BP CD constructions; (ii) the person restriction of occurrence of CD, limited to 1st and 2nd person pronouns only; (iii) the amplitude of syntactic contexts that allow doubling with the forms me and te; and (iv) the syntactic status of the forms me and te. We argue that BP CD constructions are instances of optional agreement. This optionality is not unrestricted, however, but conditioned by an specific formal feature, namely, [uauthor:±], which is hosted by the projection ClP. It is also due to this feature that CD takes place only with 1st and 2nd person. Since 3rd person elements are underspecified for the relevant feature of the clitic projection, they do not allow for that projection to be present in the derivation. Dialectal BP CD can occur with accusatives, datives, possessives and within ECM subject constructions, small-clauses and idioms. Despite this variety of contexts, we propose that the basic structure of BP CD is cl-V-DP. Two requirements must be met, for the CD structure to obtain: (a) the DP must bear a valued counterpart of the [author] feature; and (b) the doubled argument must have its Case feature valued. We also assume that the dialectal BP forms me and te cannot be treated as clitics pronouns, in traditional terms. Instead their behavior resembles agreement marks. Therefore this analysis is affiliated to a line of approaches that situate CD phenomena within a broader set of agreement operations.