P07 — Deficiency and Redundancy in Iberoromance Pronominal Systems
Project description
Subproject P07 examines variation in accusative clitic doubling (ACD) and null direct objects (NDOs) within and across Spanish and Portuguese varieties. Although these languages share a substantial inventory of pronominal elements and surface configurations, they differ in striking ways that challenge unified theoretical accounts (Maddox, 2021). Many existing generalizations also require systematic empirical verification.
Building on Di Tullio et al.’s (2019) research on ACD in Rioplatense Spanish, P07 addresses key gaps in the study of null objects across Spanish varieties and clitic doubling in Portuguese. This includes the recently documented ACD system of Mineiro Brazilian Portuguese (Machado Rocha and Ramos, 2016). Through parallel experimental studies, the project will establish a closely comparable dataset for at least four varieties: Rioplatense Spanish, Peninsular Spanish, Mineiro Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese. By investigating minimal contrasts among these systems, P07 aims to determine how redundancy and deficiency operate across closely related but grammatically divergent varieties.
Team
Albert Wall
Principal Investigator
University of Vienna
Albert Wall studied Romance and East Slavic Philology at the University of Tübingen and completed his doctorate in Comparative Romance Linguistics at the University of Zurich. His research examines argument structure, nominal syntax and semantics, syntax–phonology interactions, and variation in Ibero-Romance varieties. Read more
Philippa Adolf
PhD Student
University of Vienna
Philippa Adolf holds a BA in Romance Linguistics and completed the Bavarian state examination for teaching English and Spanish at secondary level. Her research combines corpus-based and experimental methods to investigate direct object realisation patterns in Spanish. Read more
Marco Losavio
PhD Student
University of Vienna
Marco holds a master’s degree in Classical Greek Philology from the University of Zurich. His research focuses on clitic doubling, null objects, and diachronic variation, particularly in Brazilian Portuguese and other Ibero-Romance varieties. Read more
Cluster membership
Output
Publications
2025
Wall, A., Zeugin, S., Obrist, P., Kabatek, J., & Santos Rebelo, P. (2025). Differential Marking of inanimate direct objects across four varieties of Spanish: Evidence for grammatical differences from elicitation experiments. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.17201
author={Wall, A. and Zeugin, S. and Obrist, P. and Kabatek, J. and Santos Rebelo, P.},
title={Differential Marking of inanimate direct objects across four varieties of Spanish: Evidence for grammatical differences from elicitation experiments},
year={2025},
month={July},
volume={10},
ISSN={2397-1835},
url={https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/id/17201/},
DOI={10.16995/glossa.17201},
number={1},
journal={Glossa: a journal of general linguistics} }
Wall, A., Zeugin, S., Obrist, P., Rebelo, P. S., & Kabatek, J. (2025). Prominence scales and variation in differential object marking: experimental evidence from Ibero-Romance. Probus, 37(1), 115–161. https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2024-0006
author={Wall, A. and Zeugin, S. and Obrist, P. and Rebelo, P. S. and Kabatek, J.},
title={Prominence scales and variation in differential object marking: experimental evidence from Ibero-Romance},
year={2025},
month={May},
volume={37},
ISSN={0921-4771, 1613-4079},
DOI={10.1515/probus-2024-0006},
number={1},
journal={Probus},
pages={115–161} }
2024
Losavio, M. (2024). The use of the nominative pronoun EU in object position in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Energeia, IX, 238–270.
author={Losavio, M.},
title={The use of the nominative pronoun EU in object position in spoken Brazilian Portuguese},
year={2024},
volume={IX},
journal={Energeia},
pages={238–270} }
Talks
2026
Adolf, P. (2026). Entre omisión y doblado – variación en la realización del objeto directo en español y portugués [Invited talk]. Tribuna Festival, University of Graz.
author={Adolf, P.},
title={Entre omisión y doblado – variación en la realización del objeto directo en español y portugués},
year={2026},
eventtitle={Tribuna Festival},
venue={University of Graz} }
Adolf, P. (2026). Predicting null objects – a quantitative perspective on direct object realisation patterns in Peninsular Spanish [Invited talk]. Linguistisches Kolloquium, University of Zürich.
author={Adolf, P.},
title={Predicting null objects – a quantitative perspective on direct object realisation patterns in Peninsular Spanish},
year={2026},
eventtitle={Linguistisches Kolloquium},
venue={University of Zürich} }
Adolf, P. (2026). Predicting object omission – a quantitative approach to direct object omission in Peninsular Spanish. Alpes 6, Kandersteg, Switzerland.
author={Adolf, P.},
title={Predicting object omission – a quantitative approach to direct object omission in Peninsular Spanish},
year={2026},
eventtitle={Alpes 6},
venue={Kandersteg, Switzerland} }
Losavio, M. (2026). To me or not to me - o redobro de clíticos no português mineiro revisitado [Invited talk]. Encontros diálogos em variação linguística, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
author={Losavio, M.},
title={To me or not to me - o redobro de clíticos no português mineiro revisitado},
year={2026},
eventtitle={Encontros diálogos em variação linguística},
venue={Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil} }
2025
Adolf, P. (2025). Empirical Perspectives on the Object Agreement Cycle analysis of different varieties of Spanish. Deutscher Hispanistentag XXIV, Uni Hamburg.
author={Adolf, P.},
title={Empirical Perspectives on the Object Agreement Cycle analysis of different varieties of Spanish},
year={2025},
eventtitle={Deutscher Hispanistentag XXIV},
venue={Uni Hamburg} }
Adolf, P. (2025). Verb-driven Patterns of Object Omission in the History of Spanish: A Corpus-based Analysis [Poster]. Null Objects from a Crosslinguistic and Developmental Perspective, Palma, Spain.
author={Adolf, P.},
title={Verb-driven Patterns of Object Omission in the History of Spanish: A Corpus-based Analysis},
year={2025},
eventtitle={Null Objects from a Crosslinguistic and Developmental Perspective},
venue={Palma, Spain} }
Adolf, P., Losavio, M., & Wall, A. (2025). A duplicação de clíticos no português brasileiro não-padrão não codifica especificidade, mas o grau de envolvimento do falante. 16. Lusitanistentag, LMU München.
author={Adolf, P. and Losavio, M. and Wall, A.},
title={A duplicação de clíticos no português brasileiro não-padrão não codifica especificidade, mas o grau de envolvimento do falante},
year={2025},
eventtitle={16. Lusitanistentag},
venue={LMU München} }
Adolf, P., Losavio, M., & Wall, A. (2025). Redundancia y deficiencia en las lenguas iberorrománicas: evidencia experimental sobre el doblado de clíticos y los objetos nulos [Invited talk]. Seminario de Estudios Hispánicos, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
author={Adolf, P. and Losavio, M. and Wall, A.},
title={Redundancia y deficiencia en las lenguas iberorrománicas: evidencia experimental sobre el doblado de clíticos y los objetos nulos},
year={2025},
eventtitle={Seminario de Estudios Hispánicos},
venue={Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain} }
Losavio, M. (2025). Concordando em discordar - Ponde em questão as abordagens atuais do fenômeno da desconcordância em português. 16. Lusitanistentag, LMU München.
author={Losavio, M.},
title={Concordando em discordar - Ponde em questão as abordagens atuais do fenômeno da desconcordância em português},
year={2025},
eventtitle={16. Lusitanistentag},
venue={LMU München} }
Losavio, M. (2025). ‘Não esqueça eu’ - Nominative eu in object position in spoken Brazilian Portuguese is a case of reanalysis [Poster]. Congresso internazionale di linguistica e di filologia romanza, Uni Salento, Lecce, Italy.
author={Losavio, M.},
title={‘Não esqueça eu’ - Nominative eu in object position in spoken Brazilian Portuguese is a case of reanalysis},
year={2025},
eventtitle={Congresso internazionale di linguistica e di filologia romanza},
venue={Uni Salento, Lecce, Italy} }
Losavio, M., Adolf, P., & Wall, A. (2025). Clitic Doubling in non-standard Brazilian Portuguese does not encode specificity but overt case and illocutionary force: evidence from agreement mismatches [Poster]. Referential Expressions in Discourse 2025: Mismatches in Anaphoric Relations, University of Graz.
author={Losavio, M. and Adolf, P. and Wall, A.},
title={Clitic Doubling in non-standard Brazilian Portuguese does not encode specificity but overt case and illocutionary force: evidence from agreement mismatches},
year={2025},
eventtitle={Referential Expressions in Discourse 2025: Mismatches in Anaphoric Relations},
venue={University of Graz} }
Losavio, M., Adolf, P., & Wall, A. (2025). O português são dois”? Uma experiência de aceitabilidade sobre objetos nulos em português europeu e brasileiro [Invited talk]. Workshop on Missing Arguments, Universidade do Minho, Portugal.
author={Losavio, M. and Adolf, P. and Wall, A.},
title={O português são dois”? Uma experiência de aceitabilidade sobre objetos nulos em português europeu e brasileiro},
year={2025},
eventtitle={Workshop on Missing Arguments},
venue={Universidade do Minho, Portugal} }
Losavio, M., Adolf, P., & Wall, A. (2025). Syntactic Constraints on Null Objects in Spanish and Portuguese Varieties: Three Experimental Studies [Poster].
author={Losavio, M. and Adolf, P. and Wall, A.},
title={Syntactic Constraints on Null Objects in Spanish and Portuguese Varieties: Three Experimental Studies},
year={2025},
venue={Palma, Spain} }
Wall, A. (2025). ¿Qué pueden enseñarnos los “hallazgos contradictorios” en los estudios sobre la marcación diferencial de objeto?. Deutscher Hispanistentag XXIV, Uni Hamburg.
author={Wall, A.},
title={¿Qué pueden enseñarnos los “hallazgos contradictorios” en los estudios sobre la marcación diferencial de objeto?},
year={2025},
eventtitle={Deutscher Hispanistentag XXIV},
venue={Uni Hamburg} }