The possessive passive in Portuguese: a lexicalist approach with a computational implementation

Abstract

The possessive passive is one of the most discussed grammatical phenomena of East Asian languages. In Portuguese, although common, it has apparently been discussed only by Lunguinho (2011, 2013, 2016) in a transformational approach with constructed examples. In this paper, we oppose this approach both theoretically and methodologically. On the one hand, we propose a purely lexicalist analysis based on the non-transformational LFG and LDG models. On the other, we resort to evidence extracted from authentic texts. This twofold strategy allows us to explain data that do not fit Lunguinho’s proposal. We argue that the distinctive properties of this passive variety result from a lexical rule that extends the argument structure of the verb ter ‘have’, by incorporating a predicate variable into its semantic form. This variable is linked to a predicative argument, turning ter into an object control equi verb.