Abstract

BUTHERS, Christiane Miranda  and  OLIVEIRA, Maria José De. Da Estrutura Argumental dos Inergativos Causativizados no Português Brasileiro. Diacrítica [online]. 2012, vol.26, n.1, pp.90-111. ISSN 0807-8967.

Our objective in this study is to propose a more articulated vP level in causativized inergative sentences in Brazilian Portuguese. In these structures, two DPs agents are licensed and, therefore, to allocate them, two external argument positions must be designed, namely Spec-VoiceP (DP agent) and Spec-vP (DP affected-agent). To legitimize the status of two agentive arguments in question, we used the test agent-oriented adverbial modifiers, as proposed by Pylkkänen (2002). When subjected to the test, the structures have an ambiguous reading, because adverbs can be scoped on the two agents. Still according to this author, Cause^o is present in all causative constructions, with variability in the type of argument that selects and may be (i) root, (ii) verb, or (iii) phase. We assume that, in settings with causativized inergative, Cause^o selects a phasic-vP.

Keywords : causatives; inergatives; agent; ambiguity; phasic-vP.

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