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The article is an editorial introducing the second issue of Probus 36, which is dedicated to Mary A. Kato on her 90th anniversary. The issue focuses on comparative syntax across grammars and structures. The article discusses the role of comparative syntax in improving our understanding of human language grammar and highlights the importance of cross-linguistic comparison in uncovering properties of language. It also provides an example of the contrast between European Portuguese and Spanish in terms of VP Ellipsis and explores the correlation between different types of ellipsis and the availability of certain functional categories. The issue includes articles on null subjects, null objects, gerund clauses, and syntactic change in the pronominal clitic system of Brazilian Portuguese. The articles contribute to our understanding of syntactic variation and change in different languages. [Extracted from the article]

Holmberg (Holmberg, Anders. 2005. Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. Linguistic Inquiry 36(4). 533–564) and its revised version in Holmberg et al. (Holmberg, Anders, Aarti Nayudu & Michelle Sheehan. 2009. Three partial null-subject languages: A comparison of Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, and Marathi. Studia Linguistica 63(1). 59–97) derive the availability of null subjects in a given language from the interaction between T with/without a D(efiniteness)-feature and the features of subject pronouns. Their theory predicts the existence of consistent null subject languages, whose T has the D-feature, and partial null subject languages, whose T lacks the D-feature. This paper examines this D-feature approach to null subjects against the empirical evidence provided by Brazilian Portuguese, a partial null subject language, and European Portuguese, a consistent null subject language, showing that it cannot account for the range of microvariation observed with respect to different null subject pronouns and the type of T (finite vs. participle vs. gerund). We argue that, in comparison, the ellipsis account of null subject licensing put forward in Martins and Nunes (Martins, Ana Maria & Jairo Nunes. 2021. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg's 2005 typology of null subject languages. In Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen & Luisa Meroni (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2018. Selected papers from "Going Romance" 32, Utrecht, 171–190. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins) fares better. It retains from Holmberg (Holmberg, Anders. 2005. Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. Linguistic Inquiry 36(4). 533–564 et seq.) the insight that the licensing of null subjects depends on the interaction between the features of T and the features of subject pronouns but resorts only to ϕ-features and Case. Crucially, it relies on the (theoretically and empirically) plausible assumption that the relation between abstract ϕ-features and verbal agreement morphology need not be transparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between theory and observation in scientific research, specifically in the field of linguistics. It discusses different perspectives on the role of observation and data in linguistic research, with a focus on generative syntax. The article emphasizes the importance of intuitive judgments and introspective data in this field, while also acknowledging the value of linguistic corpora and experimental methods. It concludes by presenting two papers that offer new perspectives on existing data in linguistics. The article is part of a collection of papers written to honor the 90th birthday of Mary A. Kato, a respected linguist. These papers cover various topics in linguistics, including language acquisition, syntax, semantics, and the use of judgment data in research. The authors present their findings based on extensive research and analysis of data from different sources, such as corpora and experimental studies. The papers provide valuable insights into the field of linguistics and highlight the significance of judgment data in linguistic research. [Extracted from the article]

This document is a preface to a special issue of the Probus journal dedicated to Professor Mary Aizawa Kato. The papers in this volume were presented at a workshop in May 2023 and celebrate her 90th anniversary. The preface provides a brief biography of Professor Kato, highlighting her Japanese-Brazilian heritage and her trilingual upbringing. It also discusses her academic achievements and her contributions to linguistics, emphasizing her collaborative and caring nature. The preface is written by Fernanda Pratas and Ana Maria Martins. [Extracted from the article]

This paper characterizes Contrastive Focus Fronting (CFF) in European Portuguese, distinguishing it from Topicalization and Evaluative exclamatives on the basis of syntactic and interpretational tests illustrated with empirical evidence from intuition/introspective judgments and different types of written sources. It reveals that the lack of consensus among speakers regarding CFF is a consequence of the fact that Contemporary European Portuguese includes two grammars with CFF. One grammar is less restrictive regarding the array of constituents that can be fronted. The other grammar only allows fronting of deictics or constituents containing them. In this more restrictive variant, CFF structures are comparable to other grammatical structures of European Portuguese, which have in common the fact that word order alternations may be limited to deictic elements. Finally, this study identifies the relevant semantic features to tease apart CFF, Topicalization and Evaluative exclamatives. CFF involves fronting of constituents with the features [D-linked]/[deictic] and [evaluative]. Topicalization structures and Evaluative exclamatives do not associate the two types of features: topicalized constituents are [D-linked]; the fronted constituent in Evaluative exclamatives bears the feature [evaluative]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]