ABSTRACT
In this paper, we investigate with Brazilian Portuguese (PB) data Svenonius’ (2006SVENONIUS, P. 2006. The emergence of Axial Parts. Nordlyd, v. 33, n. 1, p. 49-77., 2010_____. 2010. Spatial P in English. In: CINQUE, G.; RIZZI, L. (Orgs.) Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures. Oxford University Press.) syntactical-semantic proposal to the so-called “axial structures”, expressions such as ‘em frente a’ that are interpreted as denoting a spatial region projected from a GROUND. After critically evaluating the Svenonius’ (2006SVENONIUS, P. 2006. The emergence of Axial Parts. Nordlyd, v. 33, n. 1, p. 49-77., 2010_____. 2010. Spatial P in English. In: CINQUE, G.; RIZZI, L. (Orgs.) Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures. Oxford University Press.) proposal, which claims in favor of a specific functional head as the host for a lexeme such as ‘frente’, we present Matushansky and Zwarts’ (in press_____. Tops and Bottoms: Axial Nominals as Weak Definites (no prelo).) solution, which claims that this is, in fact, a “weak noun”. Our analysis of PB axial structures leads to favor Matushansky and Zwarts’ (in press_____. Tops and Bottoms: Axial Nominals as Weak Definites (no prelo).) proposal.
Keywords:
Preposition; Axial structures; Semantics; Syntax
