Eckhard Bick - VISL

(4) "quando" conjunction or adverb or WH-word ?
Example (1) refers to an open, productive (!) class of "attributive" nouns, many of
which are lexicographically registered as adjectives, too. What this really means is
just that they can appear in syntactic places where one would normally expect an
adjective:
(5a) Conhece @FMV muitos @>N comunistas @N manifestos @N (pre-nominal modifier) the PoS class of
determiner (DET). Still, "que" is so central to clause structure, that early
disambiguation (i.e. on the morphological, or rather, PoS/inflexion level) is
desirable.
For (3) and (4), I have chosen a slightly different path, opting for one word
class (DET for "o" and ADV for "quando"), but adding secondary tags. For "o",
matches @>N use, and pronominal use (@NPHR), but the secondary
tags are not disambiguated in the morphological module, the reason being, that the
distinction is a class feature of the whole determiner class, most of whose members
can (also) be used nominally in Portuguese. QU-adverbs like "quando" receive the
secondary tags and , the latter implying "conjunctional" use (7c), the
former covering the traditional (interrogative) adverb reading (7a). These word class
boundaries are, however, difficult to maintain. (7d) forces a 'relative' reading not
traditionally compatible with the conjunction class, and (7b) places the ADV-
"quando" in complementiser 71 position otherwise typical of conjunctions or relatives.
71 In this text, “coplementiser position” is the clause header field which is obligatory in Portuguese finite and averbal
subclauses, and optional in non-finite subclauses. “Complementisers” are the items able to fill this position,
subordinating conjunctions, relative adverbs and interrogative adverbs. Contrary to some Portuguese grammar
traditions, tbe notion of complementiser is not restricted to “completive” (substantival) finite subclauses typically
- 101 -