Phrase Structure of Brazilian Sign Language - Ronice.cce.prof.ufsc.br

The proposal is based on the featural and affixal approaches<br />
developed by Lasnik (1995), and also on the morphological parameter proposed by<br />
Bobaljik (1995). I relate these analyses and present the phrase structures in LSB that<br />
account for the asymmetric behavior of the verbs. This approach is compatible with<br />
the minimalist program, since phrase structure is projected as a consequence of the<br />
interface motivations for meaning and sound/sign. Moreover, I state two general<br />
assumptions. First, all main sentences in LSB are tensed, as assumed by Aarons,<br />
Bahan, Kegl and Neidle – ABKN – (1995) for ASL, and therefore there is a<br />
functional projection for tense. There are some lexical items that are generated in this<br />
position, such as tense markers 13 . This assumption allows the subject to be basegenerated<br />
in Spec of T, then it will observe the EPP, since the subject position will<br />
be filled out, the second assumption made here (following Bobaljik, 1995). Bobaljik<br />
shows that there are enough reasons to assume Koizumi’s (1993) and Chomsky’s<br />
(1995) proposals that the subject must be generated outside of VP. He also observed,<br />
however, that there is no reason to stipulate the split of VP, as done by the original<br />
approaches.<br />
The basic idea put forward by Bobaljik (1995) is that some languages<br />
project agreement and tense, because there are agreement and tense features that<br />
must be checked during the derivation (Free-Agreement languages). Other languages<br />
solely project inflection for checking related to agreement or tense (Non-Free-<br />
Agreement languages). I suggest that there are also languages which can set both<br />
possibilities. This is caused by the existence of features related to both kinds of<br />
information in different verbal classes. For instance, main verbs in English are<br />
affixal, and there is no Agr projection, whereas French verbs, have and be in English,<br />
and inflected verbs in LSB do present AgrP. The grammar has the two options<br />
available and one and/or the other will be set considering the features inserted with<br />
the lexical items during Numeration.<br />
One of the characteristics observed by Bobaljik for languages that do<br />
project agreement is that in these languages there is a target in the phrase structure<br />
for possible object-shift when the verb moves to a higher position overtly (observing<br />
Holmberg’s generalization, 1986).<br />
LSB, as well as ASL, allows object shift. Independent motivations for<br />
this movement have not been analyzed for LSB yet. As for ASL, Matsuoka (1998),<br />
Braze (ongoing) and Chen (ongoing) have provided some explanations. I give some<br />
examples to show that object-shift is a common syntactic operation in these<br />
languages.<br />
(41) ASL<br />
a) [AgrSP [AgrS’ [TP WOMAN [T’ [AgrOP PIE i [AgrO’ PUT-IN-OVENj [VP ti [V’ tj ]]]]]]]]<br />
The woman put the pie in the oven<br />
(42) LSB 14<br />
a) _________________eyegaze ______hn<br />
13<br />
This assumption must be investigated more deeply, since there is no morphological marker for<br />
tense attached to the verb.<br />
14<br />
In these LSB examples, I assume the V raises to AgrO. When the V moves, the object may move to<br />
Spec of AgrOP. This explains the word order SVO with agreement verbs including handling verbs.<br />
13