On the Brazilian Portuguese Free Small Clauses’ Internal Structure
Keywords:
Phases, Free Small Clauses, Small Clauses, Subject, Predicate.Abstract
The main goal of this study is to answer the following question: what is the internal structure of the Free Small Clauses (FSCs) of Brazilian Portuguese? To answer this question, we conducted several tests to understand what would be the internal composition of this type of structure and what is the structural position of its elements. What we could conclude was that
the FSCs are root TPs, that is, one TP phase. Differently from Chomsky (2001), who admits that only CP and v*P can be strong phases, this paper brings some evidences from Brazilian
Portuguese in favor of the idea that TP would also be a strong phase.