Le raisonnement contrefactuel est un procès cognitif universel par lequel la réalité est comparée avec ce qui aurait pu se passer autrement (Kahneman & Tversky 1982). L'expression de la contrefactualité repose traditionnellement sur l'analyse des constructions conditionnelles si A (alors) B (Grevisse 1986, Chevalier et al. 1964, Riegel et al. 1994). Le but de notre étude est de décrire l’ensemble des constructions et des moyens grammaticaux par lesquels des locuteurs natifs expriment la contrefactualité en français, en espagnol, en italien et en français langue étrangère (FLE).Notre étude est fondée sur des données conversationnelles auprès de deux groupes d'apprenants FLE – trente hispanophones et trente italophones – et de trois groupes de contrôle : français, espagnol et italien. Pour l'enquête, nous avons utilisé comme stimulus un récit présentant une chaîne causale menant à un aboutissement malheureux (Wells & Gavanski 1989). Suite à la lecture du stimulus, nous avons demandé aux participants de proposer plusieurs alternatives afin d’éviter le dénouement malheureux (tâche mutationnelle).Nos résultats mettent en évidence que les noyaux mutationnels produits par le groupe de contrôle français combinent, le plus fréquemment, un marqueur du passé et un verbe modal (i.e., elle aurait pu choisir toute seule son plat). Les implications sémantiques de ce type de construction rendent difficile son acquisition en FLE, puisque l'apprenant doit produire un scenario alternatif lequel signifie sa propre subjectivité. L'emploi natif de ce conditionnel modalisé n'émerge que dans les variétés d'apprenant les plus avancées en termes d'immersion dans le milieu de la langue cible et d'études FLE. Nos résultats montrent que les constructions en si- ne constituent pas le moyen le plus fréquent pour parler de ce qui aurait pu se passer autrement ni en français, ni en espagnol, ni en italien. La non-prééminence des constructions conditionnelles dans l’expression de la contrefactualité devrait amener à une réflexion sur les limites de la conditionnalité en tant que procès de conceptualisation de l’irréel. / Counterfactual thinking is a universal cognitive process in which reality is compared to an imagined view of what might have been (Kahneman & Tversky 1982). The expression of counterfactuality has been traditionally analyzed from conditional sentences if P (then) Q (Grevisse 1986, Chevalier et al. 1991, Riegel et al. 1994). The present study aims to describe the whole constructions and grammatical devices used when speaking about counterfactual worlds by native-French, Spanish and Italian speakers and by Spanish-speakers learners and Italian learners of French.The study analyzes how 30 Spanish-instructed learners and 30 Italian-instructed learners express counterfactuality in spoken French as an L2 and by what grammatical devices counterfactuality is encoded by one native-French control group, one native Spanish-speakers control group and one native-Italian control group. Guided interviews were conducted in both L2 and L1, in random order. Participants were presented with a story that led to a particular outcome and were asked to provide alternative scenarios that prevented such an outcome to happen (mutation task). The same method was used with the control groups.The more frequent construction in the mutation cores in French is a combination of a past marker and a modal verb (i.e., elle aurait pu choisir toute seule son plat; she could have chosen her own dish). The semantic implications of this type of construction make difficult its acquisition in French L2, since the learner must construct alternative scenarios which denote, in addition, his own subjectivity. The native use of this modalized conditional merges in the most experimented Learners Varieties in terms of immersion and time of studies in French L2.Conditional constructions are not the most frequent way of encoding counterfactuality, neither for the native-French speakers nor for the Spanish and Italian speakers. The non-predominance of the if- clauses to speak about what might have been should hence a delimitation of conditionality as a conceptualization process within irreality. / El razonamiento contrafactual es un proceso cognitivo en el que la realidad es comparada con lo que podría haber pasado (Kahneman & Tversky 1982). La expresión de la contrafactualidad se basa tradicionalmente en un análisis de las proposiciones condicionales si A (entonces) B (Grevisse 1986, Chevalier et al. 1991, Riegel et al. 1994). El objetivo del presente estudio es describir la totalidad de construcciones y elementos gramaticales mediante los que los locutores nativos expresan la contrafactualidad en francés, español e italiano y en francés lengua extranjera (FLE).El presente estudio se basa en datos conversacionales obtenidos de dos grupos de aprendices FLE -30 hablantes de español y 30 hablantes de italiano- y de tres grupos de control: francés, español e italiano. Como estímulo hemos utilizado un texto que presenta una cadena causal que desemboca en un final desafortunado (Wells & Gavanski 1989). Tras la lectura del estímulo, hemos pedido a los participantes que propongan varias alternativas para evitar el desenlace desafortunado (tarea mutacional).Nuestros resultados ponen de manifiesto la tendencia del francés de marcar los núcleos mutacionales mediante la combinación de una marca de pasado y de un verbo modal (i.e., elle aurait pu choisir toute seule son plat; habría podido elegir su plato ella misma). Las implicaciones semánticas de este tipo de construcción dificultan su adquisición en FLE, ya que el aprendiz debe producir un escenario alternativo que signifique su propia subjetividad. El uso de este condicional modalizado emerge en las variedades de aprendiz más experimentadas en términos de inmersión y de estudios FLE.Nuestros resultados prueban que las proposiciones condicionales no son la construcción más frecuente para hablar de lo que podría haber pasado ni en francés, ni en italiano ni en español. La no preeminencia de las condicionales introducidas por si- en la construcción de escenarios alternativos debería acarrear una reflexión sobre los límites de la condicionalidad en tanto que proceso de conceptualización de la irrealidad.

[pt] O presente estudo investiga o processamento incremental de orações relativas restritivas de objeto. Considera-se, em particular, o mapeamento antecipado do referente do DP complexo, por meio da integração incremental de informação contextual, durante o processamento da oração relativa, explorando-se a possibilidade de esse tipo de integração ser conciliado à concepção de um processador sintático autônomo. Esse tema é abordado em duas direções: (i) investigando-se o momento da integração de informação contextual e as condições em que poderia haver mapeamento antecipado de referentes de um DP complexo; e (ii) avaliando-se as vantagens computacionais de um processador autônomo (frente a modelos interativos) com vistas a propor procedimento de análise que permita compatibilizá-las com os resultados experimentais obtidos. Em razão de (i), foram conduzidos três experimentos de rastreamento ocular. Sentenças com um DP-sujeito complexo contendo relativas de objeto foram apresentadas concomitantemente (experimento 1) ou precedidas (experimento 2) de contextos discursivos e visuais que poderiam permitir a desambiguização da referência em diferentes segmentos da oração relativa. Os resultados, em consonância com a literatura, sugerem que estímulos verbais foram incrementalmente processados e mapeados em referentes visuais, de modo que a busca pelo referente do DP complexo parece ter emergido tão logo houvesse informação distintiva disponível. O experimento 3 teve por objetivo investigar em que medida o mapeamento antecipado ocorreria também em estímulos temporariamente ambíguos (entre uma leitura completiva ou relativa restritiva), apresentados verbalmente em entonação natural, e precedidos por informação contextual que poderia favorecer uma análise restritiva. Ao contrário de resultados anteriores, contudo, o direcionamento contextual não pareceu suplantar a aplicação de uma análise compatível com o princípio de aposição mínima. Em função de (ii), o modelo de computação online de Corrêa e Augusto (2007) e seus desdobramentos em Augusto, Corrêa e Forster (2012) foram explorados, incorporando-se unidades de processamento correspondentes ao conceito minimalista de fase, de forma a permitir a transferência gradual de material já parcialmente processado aos sistemas de interface com vistas a possibilitar a integração incremental de informação contextual. Propõe-se, adicionalmente, que um mecanismo de pré-ativação de relações temáticas, baseado em informação contextual, poderia ser capaz de caracterizar o mapeamento antecipado do referente de um DP complexo. / [en] This study investigates the incremental processing of restrictive object relative clauses. The anticipation of the referent of the complex DP, as contextual information is integrated during the analysis of relative clause, is particularly considered and the possibility is explored of this sort of incremental processing being reconciled with an autonomous parser. The argument is conducted two-way: (i) by characterizing the moment in time at which the information provided by the complex DP is integrated with background information, and the conditions that allow for the anticipation of the referent of a complex DP; (ii) by considering the computational advantages of an autonomous parser (vis a vis interactive models), and possible means of reconciling the experimental results obtained. As for (i), three experiments were conducted in the visual world paradigm. Sentences with a complex DP subject containing a restrictive object relative clause were presented either concomitantly to a visually supported discourse context (Experiment 1) or preceded by it (Experiment 2). The visual context was manipulated in such a way as to enable the integration of the information provided by the complex DP and the discourse context to take place at different sentence segments. The results confirmed previously reported findings suggesting that sentences are incrementally interpreted and mapped onto the external world, and that the referent of the complex DP is search for as soon as possible. Experiment 3 was intended to verify the extent to which such an anticipation would take place in temporally ambiguous sentences (complement sentences or relative clauses), presented in normal intonation and preceded by contexts that would bias for the parsing of restrictive relative clauses. Unlike previous findings, however, the biasing context did not override Minimal Attachment. As for (ii), the on-line model of sentence computation in Corrêa and Augusto (2007) and its expansion in Augusto, Corrêa and Forster (2012) were further developed. The minimalist concept phase with a partially analyzed material being transferred to the interfaces, when adapted to left-right on-line computation, enables a partially analyzed complex DP to be minimally interpreted and integrated with background information. Additionally, the pre-activation of thematic relations on the basis of discourse/contextual information was proposed as a means of accounting for the anticipation of the referent of complex DP as the subject of the relative clause is analyzed.

O objetivo desta dissertação é comparar o uso ou a omissão de preposições e artigos nas orações relativas de estudantes brasileiros de ELE e nativos de E. O estudo buscou verificar se os estudantes brasileiros de ELE utilizam o relativo acompanhado de preposição e artigo, quando o usam e como o fazem; quais contextos favorecem a elipse de preposição + artigo; se o comportamento sintático entre os estudantes brasileiros e os nativos se assemelha e quais as possibilidades para essas semelhanças / diferenças. Para tanto, analisamos um corpus recolhido de testes escritos de reformulação de orações de três grupos de estudantes brasileiros adultos de ELE e o comparamos às produções de reformulações de um grupo de nativos de E argentinos. De acordo com nossas hipóteses iniciais e bibliografia consultada, as orações cortadoras seriam as mais produzidas pelos estudantes, mas de acordo com nossos dados, essa não foi a opção mais usada, e sim a opção sem o artigo com preposição. Pensamos que isso se deve ao caráter mais formal (escrito) dos testes. Concluímos que os brasileiros, em sua língua nativa, não usariam tal estrutura, mas quando têm que lidar com o E, preferem cortar o artigo em vez de produzir uma estrutura que seja mais comum em PB como a cortadora. Em contrapartida, os nativos usaram com mais frequência as orações padrão, que quase não apareceram nos resultados dos estudantes brasileiros. Ou seja, o comportamento sintático dos estudantes brasileiros e dos nativos foram evidentemente diferentes. Os estudantes brasileiros nem sempre preferiram o uso de relativas com quien para antecedente [+animado], como predizem as gramáticas. Aliás, o uso das duas orações padrão (prep. + quien e prep.+ art. + que) foi bastante equilibrado. Os nativos de E, para o mesmo tipo de antecedente, usaram a oração padrão com o relativo que com maior frequência. Quando a oração relativa apresentou caráter causal, os informantes brasileiros e nativos foram levados a expressar essa relação causal e evitaram a oração relativa. / The objective of this dissertation is to compare the use or omission of prepositions in relative clauses and articles of Brazilian students of ELE and native E speakers. The study aimed at verifing whether the Brazilian students use prepositions, accompanied by the relative pronoun and articles, when they use and how they do that; contexts which favor the ellipse \"preposition + article\"; if the syntactic behavior among Brazilian students matches the native speakers and the possibilities for these similarities / differences. To this end, we collected a corpus reformulation\'s sentences of written tests of three groups of Brazilian adult students of ELE and compared to the production of reformulations of a group of Argentinian E. native speakers. According to our initial hypotheses and consulted literature, students produce more often pp-chopping sentences, but according to our data, this was not the preferred option, but the one without article and with preposition. We think this is due to the more formal nature of the (written) tests. We concluded that Brazilian students in their native language would not use such a structure, but when they have to deal with E, they prefer to cut the article instead of producing a structure that is more common in PB - like the pp-chopping. In contrast, the native speakers used standard sentences more often, which hardly ever appeared in the results of Brazilian students. That is, the syntactic behavior of Brazilian students and native speakers were evidently different. Brazilian students do not always preferred the use of relative pronoun using \"quien\" for the antecedent [+ animate], as grammatically expected. In fact, the use of two standard sentences (\"prep. + quien\" and \"prep. + art. + que) was fairly balanced. The native speakers of E, for the same type antecedent, used the standard sentence with the relative \"que\" with more frequency. When the relative clause introduced causal character, Brazilians and native speaker informants were led to express this causal relationship and avoided the relative clause.

Trata-se de estudo acerca da cláusula de não indenizar e da cláusula limitativa do dever de indenizar, mecanismos utilizados pelos contratantes com vistas a aliviar a sobrecarga das indenizações, que se aproximam de institutos como o seguro de responsabilidade civil e a cláusula penal, apresentando também pontos de coincidência com a transação, a renúncia e o consentimento do ofendido. Embora sejam conhecidas desde o direito romano, foi no Estado liberal que essas convenções tiveram maior aceitação, a qual foi sendo, no entanto, paulatinamente reduzida, à medida que foi se configurando o que posteriormente se convencionou chamar de dirigismo contratual, que tem em mira corrigir as injustiças resultantes do modelo individualista de outrora, na busca por uma igualdade real entre as partes contratantes. No ordenamento jurídico brasileiro não há regra geral disciplinando a matéria, mas apenas disposições pontuais que regulam campos específicos; esta a origem de toda a controvérsia que gravita em torno da validade e eficácia da cláusula de não indenizar e da cláusula limitativa do dever de indenizar, questões, ao que se entende, que se devem resolver pelas regras de admissibilidade dos contratos em geral, respeitando-se, sempre, evidentemente, os limites da ordem pública, o que significa, nos tempos atuais, observância, também e principalmente, aos princípios da boa-fé objetiva, do equilíbrio contratual e da função social do contrato / It is a study on the non-indemnity clause and on the limitation of indemnity clause, mechanisms utilized by contractors in order to relieve the burden of indemnities which approach institutes such as the civil liability insurance and the penalty clause and also show intersection points with the settlement, the waiver and the consent of the offended party. Although known since roman law, it was in liberal State that such conventions have received greater acceptance, which nonetheless was gradually reduced as what later to be denominated contractual interventionism emerged, whose purpose is to correct the inequities resulting from the individualist model of yesteryear in the quest for true equality between the contracting parties. There is not a general legal rule in the Brazilian legal system regulating the matter, but only specific provisions governing specific cases; this is the origin of all controversy towards the validity and effectiveness of the non-indemnity clause and of the limitation of indemnity clause, these are issues that, as one comprehends, should be solved with the admissibility rules of contracts in general, provided that the limits of public order, evidently, are always respected, what means, nowadays, observance, also and mainly, of the principles of objective good faith, contractual balance and social purpose of the contract

[pt] Esta dissertação tem como tema o processamento de orações relativas, focalizando estruturas com pronome resumptivo no Português Brasileiro (PB). O estudo baseia-se numa proposta teórica que visa a uma articulação entre teoria lingüística e teorias de processamento no tratamento da aquisição da linguagem e do processamento lingüístico. A hipótese de trabalho que orientou esta pesquisa é que existiria uma correlação entre a presença de resumptivo e o custo de processamento na produção, caracterizado em função da variável foco. No que se refere à compreensão, a literatura apresenta resultados conflitantes com relação a um efeito facilitador da presença do pronome resumptivo no que concerne à atribuição temática em relativas com foco no objeto. Dois experimentos são relatados. O primeiro teve como objetivo verificar o quanto, e em que direção, a presença do resumptivo afeta a compreensão de orações relativas por crianças de 3 e 5 anos falantes de PB. O segundo utilizou técnica de produção oral induzida para investigar o uso do resumptivo como estratégia de último recurso por adultos falantes de PB. Os resultados do experimento com crianças reiteram o efeito de foco, recorrente na literatura, mas não o efeito facilitador do resumptivo. Ao contrário, sua presença parece dificultar a compreensão por parte de crianças de 5 anos. Os resultados obtidos com adultos evidenciam maior incidência de resumptivos em orações relativas ramificadas à direita, nas estruturas previstas com sendo as de maior custo computacional, dando suporte à hipótese do resumptivo como estratégia de último recurso na produção da fala. / [en] This dissertation deals with the processing of relative clauses, and focuses on resumptive structures in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). It is grounded on a theory of language processing and acquisition that aims at reconciling a minimalist view of language with psycholinguistic models of sentence processing. The working hypothesis of this study is that there is a correlation between the presence of a resumptive pronoun and processing cost of the relative clause in sentence production, which is defined in relation to the variable focus. As far as comprehension is concerned, there is controversy with regard to the effect of the resumptive pronoun in children`s performance. In this study, two experiments are reported. The first one aimed at investigating the effect of a resumptive in thematic assignment, in relative clause comprehension by BP speaking 3 and 5 year olds. In the second one, an elicited production task was used with BP speaking adults in order to test the hypothesis of resumptives as a last resource strategy in oral sentence production. The results of the first experiment reiterate the effect of focus, but do not support the view that the resumptive pronoun has any facilitative effect. On the contrary, its presence seems to pose difficulties for 5 year olds. The results obtained with adults show a higher frequency of resumptives in right-branching sentences, in those conditions predicted to be the most demanding ones. These results are compatible with the hypothesis of resumptive relative clauses as the result of last resource strategy in language production.

This research critically analyses and compares how the United Arab Emirates (UAE)1 Law and English and Welsh (EW) Law regulates obligations in a contract, for a thing that is to come into existence in the future, namely a construction contract. Uncertainty/speculation as to how an obligation is to be performed in UAE Law is termed gharar. The word that is synonymous with this terminology in EW Law is “risk”. The extent of gharar or ‘risk’ (these terms are used on an interchangeable basis in this thesis) in an obligation plays a fundamental role in the profitability of a construction contract. Where losses become unacceptable, particularly for the Contractor, a dispute will arise. These circumstances may be in conflict with UAE Law, which obligates parties to a contract to ensure circulation of wealth by maintaining the anticipated profit to be made from a contract. This analysis also reviews how the level of gharar or ‘risk’ can be increased by operation of two types of provision that are included in standard forms of construction contract such as the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, Geneva, Switzerland (FIDIC) Conditions of Contract for Construction for Building and Engineering Works Designed by the Employer 1st Ed. 1999 (FIDIC99). The first is a provision that releases the Employer from liability where the Contractor does not give timely notice of an Employer’s act of prevention. The second is a provision giving the Employer a discretion to act in an opportunistic manner, and exempt or limit his liability. It considers how FIDIC99 should be applied to control gharar or ‘risk’ in a positive way. It also identifies similarities between how UAE Law controls gharar and that of the notion of parties’ reasonable expectations in contract Law (herein referred to as parties’ expectations), and how relational contracts operate to ensure parties achieve their expectations.

As cláusulas restritivas de direitos fundamentais pertencem à perspectiva da norma, ao contrário das restrições que pertencem à perspectiva do direito. É comum nos depararmos no controle judicial de constitucionalidade das leis com o fenômeno das cláusulas restritivas, sobretudo, em casos versando sobre colisões de direitos fundamentais. Por se tratar de uma característica presente em muitas normas jurídicas, tanto no nível constitucional como no nível infraconstitucional, o recurso ao sopesamento, diante da carência argumentativa de outros métodos para lidar com essa problemática, tem se mostrado uma ferramenta eficaz. O objetivo deste trabalho é descobrir o quão eficaz é essa ferramenta e se a interpretação e aplicação dos direitos fundamentais só têm a ganhar em desenvoltura argumentativa quando ela é adotada em detrimento de outras alternativas. Para isso, é preciso saber como o sopesamento opera na justificação constitucional de normas de direito fundamental, especificamente em situações nas quais uma cláusula restritiva com a estrutura de princípio é inserida na formulação de uma norma com estrutura de regra ou vice-versa. Essa circunstância revela o duplo caráter das normas de direitos fundamentais, um fenômeno normativo pouco explorado, porém muito comum, cuja argumentação jurídica traz consigo uma série de dificuldades de congruência teórica. Explorar tais dificuldades constitui a essência do objeto desta pesquisa, pois compreendê-las é imprescindível à adequada satisfação do ônus argumentativo decorrente das cláusulas restritivas de direitos fundamentais. O argumento que pretendo defender, aqui, é o de que a prática argumentativa baseada isoladamente no raciocínio do sopesamento é incapaz de produzir uma resposta adequada a esse ônus argumentativo. No entanto, quando combinada com o raciocínio da subsunção, ela tem à sua disposição uma racionalidade jurídica que permite uma leitura correta das cláusulas restritivas de direitos fundamentais na formulação de normas de estrutura dúplice. / Fundamental rights limiting clauses belongs to the perspective of the norm, contrary to limitations which belong to the perspective of law. It is common in the judicial review of legislation to come across with the phenomenon of limiting clauses, namely in cases concerning collisions of fundamental rights. Since it is a characteristic present in quite many legal norms both in the constitutional and infra-constitutional levels, the recourse to balancing because of the argumentative deficiency of other methods to deal with this problematic has showed to be an efficient tool. The objective of this essay is to discover how effective is this tool and whether the interpretation and application of fundamental rights has only to win in argumentative resourcefulness when it is adopted to the detriment of other alternatives. For that, it is needed to know how balancing operates in fundamental rights norms constitutional justification, specifically in situations where a limiting clause with principle structure is inserted in the formulation of a norm that has a rule structure, and vice-versa. This circumstance reveals the double character of fundamental rights norms, an underexplored normative phenomenon but a very common one, whose legal argumentation brings with it a series of theoretical congruency difficulties. Explore these difficulties constitutes the essence of the object of this research, because to comprehend them is indispensable to achieve an adequate satisfaction of the burden of argumentation coming from the fundamental rights limiting clauses. The argument that I seek to defend here is that the argumentative practice based solely in the balancing reasoning is unable to produce an adequate answer to this burden of argumentation. However, when combined with the subsumption reasoning, it has at its disposal a legal rationality that allows a correct reading of the fundamental rights limiting clauses in the formulation of double structure norms.

Essa dissertação pretende esclarecer o estatuto das orações relativas do karitiana (tupi- Arikém). Orações relativas podem ser classificadas como relativas de núcleo externo (RNE) e de núcleo interno (RNI), sendo o principal critério de diferenciação a posição do núcleo em relação à relativa: relativas com o núcleo adjacente à oração subordinada são classificadas como RNEs, enquanto aquelas com o núcleo interno à subordinada são RNIs (DE VRIES, 2006, CULY, 1990). Outro critério utilizado é a marcação de caso: se o núcleo estiver marcado com o caso exigido pelo verbo da matriz, a relativa será uma RNE; se for aquele exigido pelo verbo da relativa, ela será uma RNI (COLE, 1987). Dentro desse quadro, as orações do karitiana são difíceis de classificar: por um lado, o núcleo aparece sempre deslocado para a periferia esquerda (STORTO, 1999), algo característico de RNEs; por outro, a marcação de caso no núcleo segue o padrão de RNIs. À luz do trabalho de Basilico (1996), hipotetizamos que as relativas do karitiana seriam RNIs com frontalização opcional do núcleo. Se for o caso, é esperado que relativas com núcleos não frontalizados sejam permitidas. Montamos então um experimento para verificar se as relativas poderiam ter seus núcleos não frontalizados e testamos 14 falantes com uma metodologia de produção elicitada. Os resultados mostram que, embora haja uma tendência pela frontalização, núcleos não frontalizados são permitidos na língua, pois há casos de relativas de sujeito com a ordem OSV e de relativas de objeto SOtiV, OSV e SOV. Também foram produzidas relativas de objeto sem o morfema de foco do objeto , indicando que ele não é imprescindível para a relativização. Esse quadro aproxima nossas relativas das RNIs, pois RNEs não podem ter núcleos em outras posições além da periferia da oração relativa. Também analisamos propostas de análise sintática para as diversas ordens de palavras coletadas em nosso experimento. Vemos que aquelas que assumem algum tipo de deslocamento do núcleo para Spec de uma projeção de periferia seja CP ou AspP incorrem em diversos problemas, como a impossibilidade de derivar relativas de objeto SOtiV e a incapacidade de excluir estruturas agramaticais com advérbios. Assim, propomos que a frontalização do núcleo é uma adjunção a AspP. Dados de orações relativas com advérbios nos levam ainda a postular que, em relativas de objeto, a frontalização do núcleo ocorre em duas etapas: primeiro um movimento para Spec, vP e, em seguida, a frontalização para uma posição de adjunto de AspP. Essa primeira etapa do movimento seria marcada pela presença de em v e estaria na base do sincretismo desse morfema, que também está presente em perguntas qu- de objeto e em construções de foco do objeto. Por fim, oferecemos ainda uma análise da correlação entre a presença do morfema e a frontalização do objeto a partir do modelo de fases de Chomsky (2000, 2001), admitindo que o movimento do objeto para a borda do sintagma verbal seria uma operação sintática imprescindível para a subsequente frontalização do objeto / This dissertation aims to clarify the status of relative clauses in Karitiana (Tupi-Arikém). Relative clauses are traditionally classified as externally (EHRC) or internally-headed (IHRC) and the main criterion for their differentiation is the heads position: EHRCs have their heads adjacent to the relative clause itself, whereas IHRCs have internal heads (DE VRIES, 2006, CULY, 1990). Another criterion is case-marking: if the head is marked with the case demanded by the matrix verb, the relative is an EHRC; if it is the one demanded by the embedded verb, it will be an IHRC (COLE, 1987). Within this framework, karitiana relative clauses are hard to classify: on one hand, the head always appears fronted to the left periphery (STORTO, 1999), which resembles the pattern found in EHRCS; on the other hand, the case-marking on the head is similar to IHRCs. In the light of Basilicos (1996) work, one can hypothesize that karitiana relative clauses are IHRCs with optional head frontalization. In this case, it is expected that relatives with non-fronted heads will be allowed in the language. An experiment was designed in order to verify if karitiana relatives could have non-fronted heads and 14 speakers were tested with an elicited production methodology. The results show that, although there is a preference for frontalization, non-fronted heads are possible in the language, since subject relatives OSV and object relatives SOtiV, OSV and SOV were produced. There are also cases of object relatives without the object focus morpheme , indicating that it is not indispensable in relative clause formation. These results bring karitiana relatives closer to IHRCs, because EHRCs cannot have their heads in any other positions than in the periphery of the clause. We also discuss some syntactic proposals for the word orders found in our experiment, claiming that those which assume head dislocation to Spec of CP and AspP face some problems, such as the derivation of SOtiV object relatives and ungrammatical structures with adverbs. Therefore, our proposal is that the frontalization of the head is an adjunction to AspP. Paradigms of relative clauses with adverbs also show that, in object relatives, the frontalization of the head occurs in two steps: first the head moves to Spec, vP and then it is further fronted to the position of adjunct of Spec, AspP. The first step is marked with on v and it underlies the syncretism of this morpheme, which is also present in object wh- questions and object focus constructions. Finally, the correlation between and the frontalization of the head is analyzed within the phase theory framework (CHOMSKY, 2000, 2001) and it is assumed that object movement to vPs edge is a syntactic requirement for further frontalization

This essay aims to explain Finnish students’ acquisition of Swedish as a second language: the focal point is the learners’ use of the possessive personal pronouns (hennes, hans and deras) and the possessive reflexive pronouns (sin, sitt and sina), and the placement of the Swedish negation in subordinate clauses. The theoretical background for the analysis of these linguistic structures is the Processability theory. This thesis suggests that the pronouns, which have not been earlier investigated through the Processability theory, are a part of the stage 4 of the theory, whilst the placement of negation in subordinate clauses is part of the stage 5. The basis for this thesis is a survey made in a secondary school in the north of Sweden and an upper secondary school in the north of Finland in autumn 2016. In other words two different groups of students have participated in the survey: one group studying Swedish as a second language in Sweden and one group studying Swedish as a foreign language in Finland. The analysis shows no linguistic differences between these two groups and for this reason there is no distinction made between them. The results reveal that the possessive personal pronouns are slightly more overused than the possessive reflexive pronouns. However, the results show that those students who have not commenced to process level 4 have not either began to process level 5. The learners’ utilization of the negation placement suggests that they first learn the preverbal placement of the negation in a main verb and afterwards the preverbal placement of a negation in an auxiliary verb. The results and conclusions given in this essay may be of some interest for other teachers and educational researchers.

Language processing has been a focus of working memory research since Baddeley introduced his Model of Working Memory in the 1970’s. There has been continued discussion over whether the same working memory (WM) system that underlies verbally-mediated tasks relying on conscious, controlled, processing also provides the resources used in language processing. Recently, Caplan, DeDe, Waters, & Michaud (2011) found that increased reading times at only the most difficult point of the most difficult sentences presented in their study (sentences with doubly embedded relative clauses) correlated with improved comprehension. They hypothesized that this correlation occurs because at these points where normal parsing fails, individuals with high working memory capacities use ancillary comprehension mechanisms that rely on verbal working memory. Caplan and Waters (2013) proposed that use of verbal working memory for ancillary comprehension in sentence processing may appear behaviorally as improved comprehension with longer reading times in self-paced reading tasks and as regressive eye movements out of these points where parsing is thought to fail. This thesis attempted to replicate the above mentioned finding of Caplan et al. (2011). This study also added an eyetracking task to enable measurement of regressive eye movements and a measure of working memory to permit analysis of individual differences. Forty-eight healthy adults completed a working memory battery (alphabet span, subtract two span, and sentence span), a self-paced reading task, and an eye-tracking task. For the self-paced reading and eye tracking components, participants read sentences with doubly embedded relative clauses and parallel sentences with sentential complements. Linear mixed effects models found increased self-paced reading times and go-past times at the hardest point in the harder sentences (those with doubly embedded relative clauses) as working memory increased. These results support the hypothesis that ancillary comprehension mechanisms are used in sentence processing at points where comprehension is extremely difficult. In the attempted replication of the findings of Caplan et al. (2011), logistic mixed effects models showed increased accuracy as reading times increased at the hardest point in the harder sentences, and also as reading times increased at five of the other seven segments. Logistic mixed effects models showed no significant increase in regressions out of the hardest point in harder than in the easier sentences as working memory increased. These results can be taken as further evidence, using eye tracking methods combined with self-paced reading and measurement of working memory, that ancillary comprehension mechanisms may be used in sentence processing when the limits of the normal parser are exceeded.