Abstract
This paper revises Ferreira’s (2017) analysis of depictive secondary predicate constructions, such as O João leu a carta cansado (‘John read the letter tired’). More specifically, I reject Ferreira’s (2017) hypothesis to such sentences, which suggests the adjunction of an aspectual small clause to the main clause, to which the functional category Asp would attribute the stage-level property to an adjective like cansado (‘tired’). In this paper, I defend that the relation between Asp and the adjective is not one of property attribution, but rather one of semantic feature compatibility at selection; I also defend that the adjective enters the derivation bearing the information about the type of property it conveys (permanent or temporary). Hence, I assume that depictive secondary predicate constructions may contain one of two types of Asp: one which enters the derivation with a subset of semantic features [+pers], which denotes temporal persistence and selects individual-level adjectives, or one which enters the derivation with the subset [-pers], which denotes a temporary eventuality and selects stage-level adjectives. I draw upon the works of McNally (1993) and Cinque (2010): the former, to discuss secondary predicate constructions with individual-level adjectives and the pragmatic notions involved in these contexts; the latter, to briefly deal with stage-level and individual-level adjectives within the DP.
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