Complement clauses with "para" in Mozambican Portuguese

Abstract

This paper analyses verb complements, finite and infinitival, introduced by para 'for' in Mozambican Portuguese (MP). In the analysed data, on the one hand, there is a tendency already studied and referred to in the literature (Issak 1998, P. Gonçalves 2002, 2010, a.o.), which consists of introducing finite complements to directive verbs by the preposition para and, on the other hand, the tendency not yet studied, which consists of introducing corresponding infinitival complements by the same preposition. These results reveal a tendency to standardize the c-selection properties of finite and infinitival complements of directive verbs. Furthermore, they allow to infer that para is a true preposition, as an alternative to previous analyses which have shown that para is a complementizer (Duarte 2003, Barbosa & Raposo 2013, A. Gonçalves et al. 2018) or it is as part of the conjunctional phrase para que 'for that' (see Barbosa 2013, for European Portuguese (EP)), and also as part of the complex complementizer para-que (see P. Gonçalves 2002, 2005, 2010, for MP). In MP, but not in EP, para complements selected by directive verbs can be taken up anaphorically by demonstratives like isso 'that' preceded by this preposition. Furthermore, the preposition para can also occur when directive verbs are constructed with nominal arguments. These facts favour the assumption that, in PM, the complements to directive verbs, finite and infinitival, introduced by para, are oblique complements and the preposition para is external to the complement clause/CP.