Estudos da Língua(gem) Estudos em Sintaxe Gerativa Estudos da Língua(gem) Vitória da Conquista v. 8, n. 2 p. 79-103 dezembro de 2010 *Sobre o autor ver página 103. A note on Wh-islands and Finite Control in Brazilian Portuguese 1 Algumas observações sobre Ilhas-qu e Controle Finito em Português Brasileiro Jairo NuNes* Universidade estadUal de são PaUlo (Brasil) ABSTRACT This paper discusses Ferreira’s (2000, 2004, 2009) claim that selective intervention effects in wh-island constructions in Brazilian Portuguese provide evidence for analyzing its referential null subjects as traces of A-movement. Based on the fact that intervening traces of wh-phrases in [Spec,CP] never prevent A-movement of an embedded subject out of an embedded declarative clause, I argue that a illed [Spec,CP] does not block A-movement either. Reinterpreting Ferreira’s data, I propose instead that A-movement is blocked if there is an intervening [Spec,TopP]. KEYWORDS: inite control, hyper-raising, wh-islands, movement theory of control, Brazilian Portuguese. 1 The results reported here are part of research projects supported by CNPq (352262/2008-3) and FAPESP (2006/00965-2). I would like to thank Rerisson Cavalcante, Marcelo Ferreira, Renato Lacerda, Carol Petersen, and Leonor Simioni for their comments on a previous version of this paper.