| Summary: | It has been observed that certain overt 3rd person object pronouns, such as ‘it’ in paycheck sentences, propositional clitics in Portuguese and English, 3rd person non-propositional clitics in Catalan, Spanish, Slovenian and Serbian/Croatian may allow sloppy readings. Additionally, it is well-known that Brazilian Portuguese (BP) has lost 3rd person object clitics, which were replaced either by [-animate] null objects or by [± animate] full pronouns. The latter, differently from personal 3rd person clitics in certain languages, do not allow strict/sloppy readings, regardless of their animacy feature specification. Nevertheless, animacy is relevant for the use of 3rd person object full pronouns in BP since only the [+animate] ones can be focused. I propose that the BP does not fit in the tripartite division of pronouns into ‘strong/weak/clitic’. I assume that full pronouns in Romance underwent a reanalysis from demonstratives, and that BP full pronouns have a structure that precludes them from licensing strict/sloppy readings. As for the animacy distinction in focalization contexts, I assume that [+animate] full pronouns in BP are specified for [Person] and must move out of VP to check that feature. Thus, they escape the relevant vP phase and become available for checking [focus] by a low Focus head.
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