Double pronominalization and clitic doubling in Dialectal Brazilian Portuguese and Colloquial Standard Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

In this study, we propose a comparative analysis of the ditransitive constructions in Dialectal Brazilian Portuguese (DBP) and Colloquial Standard Brazilian Portuguese (BP), taking into consideration the phenomenon named Double Pronominalization, in which both the theme and the goal arguments are realized as clitics or full pronouns, with consequences for the occurrence of a type of Person Case Constraint as well as a specific case of clitic doubling. In the comparative scenario, we show that the DBP instantiates a particular type of Double Object Construction (DOC), in which the grammatical licensing of the goal argument has similarities with the English DOC. Further we consider that both the dialectal and the standard varieties display the prepositional ditransitive construction (PDC), in which the goal argument is introduced by the preposition para (‘to’). In this paper we propose that these innovative properties can be accounted for if we consider the theory of low and high applicative, as expressed in Pylkännen’s (2008) typology. Following Pancheva & Zubizarreta (2018), we also assume that the applicative head bears an interpretable person feature entering an agreement relation with the argument introduced in the specifier position of the applicative domain (cf. also Torres Morais & Salles 2010, 2016, 2019). Finally, we claim that the loss of third person dative clitics in BP undermine the feature make-up of the low applicative head, excluding clitic cluster and clitic doubling formation (of the EP type). Consequently, two strategies arise in the licensing of the goal argument in ditransitive structures: (i) under structural Case, in a low applicative head, as found in DBP; (ii) as an oblique phrase, introduced by the preposition para (‘to’). However, first and second clitics me and te remain, implying that the BP pronominal system expresses a monovalent value for the feature [participant]. We propose that they are licensed in a high applicative structure bearing an interpretable person feature, under an agreement relation with the inherent interpretable person feature, which corresponds to first (speaker) and second person (addressee) (cf. Torres Morais & Salles, 2022).