Sluicing in Wh Embedded Interrogatives and in Free Relatives in European Portuguese

Gabriela Matos; Nádia Canceiro

doi:10.5565/rev/catjl.492

Sluicing in Wh Embedded Interrogatives and in Free Relatives in European Portuguese

Authors

Gabriela Matos University of Lisbon https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2974-0729
Nádia Canceiro University of Lisbon https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2257-3465

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Abstract

Sluicing has been classically taken as a construction that involves embedded wh-questions. However, in the last two decades some studies have shown that it may also occur in some kinds of relative clauses, namely in Free Relatives. In the current article, we present novel data that permit to distinguish Relative Sluicing from Standard Sluicing in European Portuguese. This paper is a first attempt to characterise Relative Sluicing in European Portuguese, comparing this language with Brazilian Portuguese, but also with Hungarian and Gungbe, and to evaluate the capacity of the current syntactic proposals to account for Relative Sluicing in this language. The data show that Relative Sluicing involves Free Relatives which occur in a nominal context, as claimed by previous analyses, that the fronted constituent is a wh-phrase, not a head, and suggest that a focus-based approach is an adequate way to deal with Standard and Relative Sluicing in European Portuguese.

Keywords

relative sluicing, standard sluicing, free relatives, focus, European Portuguese

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Sluicing in Wh Embedded Interrogatives and in Free Relatives in European Portuguese

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