The Effect of Semantic and Discourse Features on the Use of Null and Overt Subjects - A Quantitative Study of Third Person Subjects in Brazilian Portuguese

Bibliographic Data

ID4793127
AuthorsEduardo Correa Soares (0000-0002-4526-3299, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina), Philip Miller (0000-0002-1436-9533, Université Paris Cité), Barbara Hemforth (0000-0001-8371-1323, Université Paris Cité)
Year2020
Volume36
Issue1
Publication date2020-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDELTA Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0102-4450 • E-ISSN: 1678-460X
PublisherFapUNIFESP (SciELO) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1590/1678-460x2020360107
OpenAlexW3041050958
SciELOS0102-44502020000100406
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited20

In a corpus study and two acceptability experiments, we investigate whether semantic and discourse features of the antecedents affect the use of null and overt subjects in Brazilian Portuguese. Previous literature has proposed two hypotheses: the Hierarchy of Referentiality Hypothesis (Cyrino et al. 2000, inter alia) and the Semantic Gender Hypothesis (Creus & Menuzzi 2004, among others). We show that animacy and specificity affect the relative frequency of null and overt subjects and their acceptability in sentences. We propose an approach that accounts for previously published results as well as our new data in the light of a theory of anaphora resolution (Ariel 1990, etc

Affect (linguistics) · Anaphora (linguistics) · Animacy · Brazilian Portuguese · Cognitive psychology · Hierarchy · Linguistics · Null (SQL) · Null hypothesis · Political science · Portuguese · Resolution (logic) · Statistics · Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Computer Science · Mathematics · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access