Evaluating the form of third-person anaphoric direct objects in Portuguese: A cross-dialectal study

Both Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and European Portuguese (EP) permit definite third-person null direct objects (DOs) in anaphoric contexts, but differ with regard to the overt DO variant, with the former variety favoring tonic pronouns, the latter clitics. Previous research on language production has shown that the choice between variants in both varieties is constrained by semantic-pragmatic features such as animacy and specificity. We analyze speaker evaluation of these forms in EP and BP, using an experimental acceptability judgement task in which stimuli varied according to DO variant, animacy, and specificity. Data are drawn from the evaluative responses (n= 1752) of 215 Portuguese-speaking participants. Our results demonstrate that the null variant is evaluated most positively overall in both varieties. For EP and BP respectively, the clitic and tonic variants were evaluated most positively with animate specific referents. Our findings show that the patterns of variation previously found in production are reflected in gradient evaluations of anaphoric DOs in EP and BP. This provides support for the hypothesis that the potential shifts in Brazilian Portuguese regarding the transition from clitic to tonic direct object (DO) pronouns, suggest that the overt variant may have adopted characteristics similar to the clitic DOs in EP.