Word order of light elements inside the VP in Portuguese on the syntax-prosody-information structure interface

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the word order variation inside the VP in Portuguese, namely the distribution of complements and light adverbs inside the VP. We begin by presenting Costa’s (1998) analysis of the order of monosyllabic adverbs in Portuguese and its relation to the primary stress of the clause. Optimality Theory allows us to represent different kinds of grammatical constraints to be computed in a parallel fashion such that there is no need for a syntactocentric approach. We propose four interface constraints that can explain the phenomena of word order variation inside the VP in Portuguese (two constraints are prosodically motivated and two are related to information structure phenomena).

Keywords

• Ordem de palavras
• Foco
• Estrutura informacional da frase
• Teoria da otimidade