Gapping in European Portuguese
Gonçalo Silva
Gapping has been classically characterized as an ellipsis. However, recent literature (Johnson
2009) has regarded it as Across-the-Board movement in the English language. This paper
aims to analyze these proposals and giving its own for European Portuguese, emphasizing
some of the differences between the two languages as the source for these contrasts.
1. Introduction
Gapping has never been subject to an in-depth analysis in European Portuguese (EP),
although some of its general properties have been described in previous work (Matos 1992,
2003, 2005, 2013). However, detailed analyses of Gapping exist for the English language,
both prior to the Principles and Parameters framework, such as in Ross (1971), Sag (1980),
and within the Minimalist Program, Johnson (2009) and Vicente (2010). With that in mind,
we can compare how Gapping behaves in English and EP so as to determine the degree to
which they are either different or alike.
This paper will make an initial analysis of Gapping in EP, contrasting it with the more
recent proposals made for English. I will especially focus on the connection between Gapping
and Across the Board movement and on the compatibility or incompatibility of Gapping with
the CP node. The analysis will be developed in the Principles and Parameters framework.
I will begin by presenting the main properties of Gapping as described in the literature,
briefly analyzing its structure and using it to contrast with the properties proposed for English.
Finally, I will problematize the compatibility of Gapping with the CP node.
Proceedings of ConSOLE XXII, 2014, 156-166
http://www.sole.leidenuniv.nl
© Gonçalo Silva
Gapping in European Portuguese
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2. The main properties of Gapping in European Portuguese
Gapping occurs when the verb, or verb sequence, is omitted, as in (1a) and (1b). Optionally
some arguments or adjuncts of the main verb may also be omitted, as long as two of them are
left overt, as in the examples in (1c) vs. (1d):
(1)
a. O Paulo vai ao cinema e o Pedro vai ao teatro.
The Paulo goes to-the cinema and the Peter goes to-the theatre.
‘Paul is going to the cinema and Peter to the theatre.’
b. A Joana tem estudado alemão e a Ana tem estudado francês.
The Joana has studied German and the Ana has studied French.
‘Joana has been studying German and Ana French.’
c. A Maria deu chocolates ao Manuel e a Rita deu chocolates ao Rui.
The Maria gave chocolates to-the Manuel and the Rita gave chocolates to-the Rui.
‘Mary gave chocolates to Manuel and Rita to Rui.’
d.*O João tem ido às aulas e o Miguel tem ido às aulas.
The John has gone to-the classes and the Miguel has gone to-the classes.
*John has been going to classes and Miguel has been going to classes.
In EP, Gapping requires the omission of the entire verb sequence when this includes (semi-)
auxiliaries and a main verb, as in the examples (2a-c). However, the clauses may only present
the omission of a shared auxiliary verb as in (2d). In opposition the omission of a shared main
verb is ungrammatical, as shown in (2b) and (2c). These facts will be important later in the
paper.
(2)
a. A Joana tem estudado alemão e a Ana tem estudado francês.
The Joana has studied German and the Ana has studied French.
‘Joana has been studying German and Ana French’
b.*/#A Joana tem estudado alemão e a Ana tem estudado francês.
The Joana has studied German and the Ana has studied French.
c.*Eu tenho ido comprar revistas à loja e ele tem ido comprar livros à feira.
I have gone to-buy magazines to-the shop and he has gone to-buy books to-the
market.
d. O Pedro tem caçado e o João tem pescado.1
The Pedro has hunted and the John has fished.
‘Peter has been hunting and John fished.’
Lastly, in Gapping the clauses need to have the same polarity, i.e., they need both to be either
positive or negative.
1
A ConSOLE reviewer suggests (2d) is not the best example and a better one would be as in (i) because
Gapping requires there to be new information on the second conjunct or Gapping is not favorable:
(i)
O João tem ido à escola e o Rui tem ido ao cinema.
The João has gone to-the school and Rui has gone to-the cinema.
While this is true, it is simply more natural to omit the entire verb sequence in this particular case and as such the
original example is the clearer one.
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(3)
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a. O Pedro é inteligente e o João é simpático.
The Peter is intelligent and the João is nice.
‘Peter is intelligent and John nice.’
b. O Pedro não é inteligente nem o João é simpático.
The Pedro no is intelligent nor the João is nice.
‘Peter is not intelligent nor John nice.’
c. *O Pedro é inteligente e o João não é simpático.
*The Pedro is intelligent and the John not is nice.
d. *O Pedro não é inteligente e o João é simpático.
*The Pedro not is intelligent and the John is nice.
These are some of Gapping’s main properties in EP. I believe that these properties are
adequately accounted for by an ellipsis approach. A proposal for its structure as well as its
explanation can be found below in (4):
(4)
O Paulo vai ao cinema e o Pedro vai ao teatro.
The Paulo goes to-the cinema and the Pedro goes to-the theatre.
‘Paul is going to the cinema and Peter to the theatre.’
Gapping in European Portuguese
159
In (4), the double-striked constituents have been moved from their base position while the
single-striked constituents have been gapped.
I assume Kayne’s (1994) coordination configuration for these structures. According to
the representation in (4), the clauses are connected at the TP level through a Conj head that
projects ConjP and takes these TPs as its Specifier and Complement. Each clause is
independently derived with each verb moving to T and leaving a copy at its base position. The
ellipsis then omits the verb and other redundant constituents from the second clause. This
representation will be what I will base my arguments on for the problem addressed below.
2. Gapping: a structure of ellipsis or ATB movement?
Considering English, Larson (1988) and Johnson (2006, 2009) have argued that Gapping
works as Across the Board movement and not as an elliptic construction.
As Colaço (2006) stresses, ATB movement requires two coordinate terms, each one
presenting an empty category that is bound by a phonetically overt constituent in a position
that allows it to license the empty categories through c-command.
This configuration does not occur in the structures which I assume to capture Gapping in
EP, like (4). In his article, Larson suggests the following representation (which only features
the relevant part of the derivation for this paper’s purposes):
(5)
John sent a letter to Mary and a book to Sue.
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Larson was the first to suggest an analysis for Gapping in which the constituents are
coordinated at the VP level and ATB movement of the verbs raises them to the highest V in
the VP Shell (Larson’s Shell).
Johnson (2006, 2009) presents a similar although not identical structure.2 He develops
this treatment in detail under the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995) and relates Gapping
to Pseudogapping. The example (6), taken from Johnson’s article, illustrates his analysis for
Pseudogapping:
(6)
Some will eat beans and others eat rice.
Adopting the Minimalist Program, Johnson assumes that the verb’s subject is firstly merged
in vP and defends vP coordination with the verb’s occurrences raising across the board to a
functional projection he calls XP. To defend the coordination at this low level, Johnson
mentions the existence of Pseudogapping, which is distinguished from ‘regular’ Gapping by
leaving the auxiliary verb(s) overt, such as ‘will’ in example (6).
However, this analysis presents some problems, especially regarding European
Portuguese. First of all, the structure in (6) violates the Coordinate Structure Constraint by
extracting the subject ‘some’ of the first clause from the coordinate structure while leaving its
correspondent ‘others’ in the second clause in its basic position. Second, there are several
empirical arguments in favor of the fact that Gapping in EP requires the coordination to be, at
least, at the TP level. The arguments are as follows:
i) As previously said, Pseudogapping does not exist in EP. The (semi-)auxiliary verbs’
omission is mandatory when they form part of the sentence, as seen in example (2), repeated
below as (7):
2
A ConSOLE reviewer points out that the two structures given are fundamentally different because Larson’s
example shares the same subject between the conjuncts, while in Johnson’s example the subjects are disjoint. As
such, they should not be treated equally but as separate conditions. However, these were the examples given by
the respective authors and thus, it is not appropriate to analyse them differently here.
Gapping in European Portuguese
(7)
161
*Eu tenho ido comprar revistas à loja e ele tem ido comprar livros à feira.
‘I have gone to-buy magazines to-the shop and he has gone to-buy books to-the
market.’
Furthermore, it is important to recall that in EP we have the opposite of Pseudogapping,
which is the possibility to omit the auxiliary while leaving the main verb overt, cf. (2d).
Additionally EP is a language of generalized verb movement, which is to say that both
auxiliary and main verbs may raise to T. Thus, if a verb sequence is composed of one (or
several) auxiliary verb(s) as well as the main verb, the (first) verb moves to T. Given all of
this, there is no plausible justification for a vP or another kind of low-level coordination in EP
as presented in English.
ii) In EP, it is only possible to value the uninterpretable Φ-features of T when the verb
moves to T head. In addition, although in EP the subject may occur in a post-verbal position
and remain in situ, in Spec vP, (cf. Costa 2004) it is often claimed that even in these cases
there is an expletive null pro in Spec TP to check T’s strong EPP feature. If ATB movement
applies and the coordinate terms have different subjects, it becomes impossible to check these
features in the second term of the coordinate sentence.
iii) The compatibility between Gapping and the topicalization of constituents. Matos
(2013) presents an example like (8), which shows that Gapping in EP is compatible with
topicalization:
(8)
À Maria eles ofereceram flores e ao Paulo eles ofereceram um livro.
To-the Maria they offered flowers and to-the Paulo they-offered a book.
‘To Mary they offered flowers and to Paul a book.’
We can confirm from the example in (8) that coordination necessarily includes both
topicalized constituents because the alternative would mean that not only their movement
would be asymmetrical but also that the Coordinate Structure Constraint would be violated. I
propose structure (9) for example (8):
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(9)
With these three arguments, I conclude that in EP, in Gapping the coordination occurs at least
at the TP level.
4 . Gapping and the CP Node
Matos (2005) claims that in Gapping, the clauses must be coordinated at the TP level and the
whole structure must remain inside the CP phase. However, if we accept the articulated
analysis initially presented in Rizzi (1997), Matos’ proposal must be revised. As seen in the
structure in (9), the coordination includes TopP which, despite being included in
CP(=ForceP), is part of the left periphery of the sentence above TP (cf. Duarte 1996; Rizzi
1997, 2004). 3 It should be noted that Clitic Left Dislocation doesn’t seem to differ from
topicalization as far as being compatible with Gapping is concerned, as we can see in (10):
(10)
Ao Pedro, a Maria dá(-lhe) livros e ao Paulo, a Maria dá-(lhe) chocolates.
To-the Pedro, the Maria gives (him) books and to-the Paulo, the Maria gives (him)
chocolates.
‘To Peter, Mary gives books and to Paul, chocolates.’
As such, if we accept Rizzi’s proposals, it is possible to update Matos’ (2005) assumption by
claiming that Gapping is not necessarily limited to TP coordination. However, it still stands
that it does not go beyond CP(=ForceP) in subordinate clauses, both in islands and in some
non-island contexts.
The ungrammatical examples of Gapping in (11) and (12) present island domains,
Adjunct Island in (11), Sentential Subject Island in (12a) and Complex DP Island in (12b):
3
It should be noted that while Duarte (1996) doesn’t adopt the TopP representation per se for
topicalization, she adopts it for Clitic Left Dislocation and also assumes that TopP occurs above TP.
Gapping in European Portuguese
(11)
*A Maria come maçãs quando a Joana come pêras.
The Maria eats apples when the Joana eats pears.
(12)
a. *A Maria come maçãs e que a Ana come pêras é óbvio.
*Maria eats apples and that Ana eats pears is obvious.
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b. *A Ana gosta de livros e nós temos um amigo que gosta de chocolates.
*Ana likes books and we have a friend who likes chocolates.
An initial explanation for this fact is that Gapping cannot go beyond the CP phase. However,
consider the ambiguity in example (13a) and its possible interpretations in (b) and (c):4
(13)
a. O João disse que convidava a Joana e o Pedro a Maria.
The John said that invited the Joana and the Pedro the Maria
‘John said that he would invite Joan and Peter, Mary.’
b. O Joãoi disse que [proi convidava a Joana e o Pedro convidava a Maria].
‘Johni said that [hei would invite Joan and Peter would invite Mary].’
c. O Joãoi disse que [proi convidava a Joana] e o Pedroj disse que [proj convidava a
Maria].
‘Johni said that [hei would invite Joan] and Peterj said that [hej would invite Mary].’
If we accept the reading in (13c), there is clearly a CP, the subordinate completive clause ‘that
he would invite Joan/Mary’, in each coordinate clause and the complex sentence is still
completely grammatical in EP.
4
Regardless of the given examples, Matos (2013) admits that Gapping can co-occur with subordinate
completive infinitive clauses such as: ‘Ana claims to go to the cinema and Paul claims to go to the theatre.’
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Gonçalo Silva
In that case, what causes the ungrammaticality in a non-island embedded domain like the one
illustrated in (14a)? Notice that the ungrammaticality of (14a) contrasts with the acceptability
of the example (14b), which has the structure represented below.
(14)
a. *O Pedro pediu que a Maria comesse a pêra e que a Joana comesse a maçã.
*Peter asked that the Mary ate the pear and that the Joana ate the apple.
b. O Pedro pediu que a Maria comesse a pêra e a Joana comesse a maçã.
The Pedro asked that the Maria ate the pear and the Joana ate the apple.
‘Peter asked that Mary ate the pear and Joan the apple.’
With this contrast and the previous examples in mind, I propose that Gapping is incompatible
with CP(=ForceP) when this node is directly involved in the articulation of the two clauses. If
the CP node is within the elliptic clause, such as in the (non-island) subordinate completive
clause in (13), then there is no incompatibility whatsoever. Thus, the grammaticality contrast
between (14a) and (14b) is due to the coordination level. On one hand, for the structure in
(14a), the Conj head would coordinate the maximal projections of the C (Force), the CPs,
which would cause the sentence to be ungrammatical because then one would be trying to gap
constituents across distinct CP(=ForceP) phases. On the other hand, in (14b), as seen in the
representation above, the maximal projection of Conj is the complement of a single
C(=Force) node.
Gapping in European Portuguese
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Furthermore, on the basis of the contrasts in (15)-(16a) vs. (16b), I also claim that the
coordinate constituents in Gapping must be symmetrical even when they involve subordinate
clauses. Consider the following example:
(15)
*A Ana lê romances e penso que a Maria leia poemas (Matos 2003:902)
*The Ana reads romances and think that the Maria reads poems.
In this example, it would seem clear that the ungrammaticality is due to the existence of
CP(=ForceP) between the two coordinate terms. The following paradigm will illustrate this
idea:
(16)
a*O João foi ao cinema e o Pedro disse que foi ao teatro.
The John said went to-the cinema and the Peter said that went to the theatre.
b. O João disse que foi ao cinema e o Pedro disse que foi ao teatro.
The John said that went to-the cinema and the Peter said that went to-the theatre.
‘John said he went to the cinema and Peter said he went to the theatre.’
This pair of examples seems to show that Gapping may include subordinate completive
clauses as long as they occur inside both of the coordinate clauses, respecting parallelism.
Additionally, we can coordinate sentence functional projections selected by a single
embedded CP phase as in (14b).
5. Conclusion
The study presented in this paper is a first analysis of Gapping in European Portuguese. I have
contrasted the proposals made for English with EP and have presented empirical evidence
against Gapping as Across the Board movement in EP. I have also attempted to give an initial
explanation for the apparent incompatibility of the CP node with gapping in EP and have
presented some proposals that can explain the examples given in previous literature.
Acknowledgements
This work is based on my Master’s thesis. I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor
Gabriela Matos, for the patience with which she guides me and for all the support she gives
me whenever I need it. I would also like to thank my colleagues Filipe Marques and Nádia
Canceiro for supporting me as friends as well as providing me with useful criticism whenever
necessary. I would also like to thank the organization as well as participants of ConSOLE
XXII for giving me objective insight about the research at hand as well as the reviewer who
gave me further objective criticism. All errors are my own.
Gonçalo Silva
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
Goncalo.bl.silva@gmail.com
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Gonçalo Silva
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