Subject and objec focuzing in SVO sentences from Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This paper is about subject and object focalization in SVO sentences in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP). The focus is identified, in this study, as the constituent that conducts the non-presupposed information in the sentence, whereas the presupposition refers to information shared by the speakers in a discursive situation. The phenomenon of focalization is not free of the syntactic marking. The strategies to focalize the subject do not correspond exactly to the strategies used to focalize the object. Concerning the focalization in the subject, our hypothesis is that the BP, because it is ‘losing’ the properties of a null-subject language, makes use of the same focalization strategies of non-null languages such as English and French. As for the object focalization, there seems to be no distinction in the way the speakers focus such element.

Keywords

• foco
• sujeito
• objeto
• sintaxe
• português brasileiro