Appositive relative clauses in Portuguese: synchrony and diachrony

This study presents a comparative analysis of appositive relative clauses introduced by the relative marker o qual lit. ` the which' in contemporary European Portuguese and earlier stages of Portuguese. From a descriptive point of view, it is shown that o qual-appositive relative clauses in contemporary European Portuguese and earlier stages of Portuguese contrast sharply with respect to the following properties: (i) internal head; (ii) extraposition; (iii) pied-piping; (iv) clausal antecedent; (v) split antecedent; (vi) coordination of the relative morpheme with a noun phrase; (vii) illocutionary force; (viii) coordinator. The analysis proposed to account for these contrasts is developed within the Principles and Parameters framework of generative syntax (Chomsky 1981 and subsequent work) in its minimalist version (e.g., Chomsky 1993, 1995). The interpretation and explanation of the grammatical change under scrutiny is developed within the model proposed by Lightfoot (1991, 1999, and subsequent work), which associates diachronic change with language acquisition. The central claim is that appositive relatives cannot be derived from a single syntactic analysis. Instead, they might be generated by two different structures: the raising structure (Kayne 1994 and Bianchi 1999) or the specifying coordination structure (De Vries 2006). Applying this dual approach to the contrasts found between earlier and later Portuguese, it is claimed that o qual-appositive in contemporary European Portuguese use the raising structure, whereas those in earlier stages of Portuguese use the specifying coordination structure. This hypothesis not only derives the contrasting properties mentioned but also provides insight into the syntactic change that has taken place in the history of Portuguese.