Os pronomes clíticos em contextos infinitivos no português antigo

Abstract

The clitic raising phenomenon is broadly referred to in the literature as a property of verbal complexes, found not only in the restructuring construction (Rizzi 1982) but also in the Fazer-Inf construction (Kayne 1975).Through a quantitative study from three literary texts, the current study aims to describe the placement of clitic pronouns in Old Portuguese. Two specific contexts are analysed: i) verbal complexes of restructuring (in order to identify which verbs allowed it in Old Portuguese) and ii) prepositional infinitival clauses with simple and inflected infinitive (in order to verify whether the preposition is relevant for the position of the clitic, taking into account the assumptions made by Martins 1994 that, throughout the thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth century, there was instability in the clitic pronouns placement pattern). In the conclusion, it will be seen that the placement pattern of clitic pronouns in the simple infinitive clauses introduced by a preposition contributes to the clarification of fidelity of the late copies of two 13th century original texts.