Diadorim, Rio de Janeiro, Revista 19 —Volume Especial 2017. On the Syntax of Subjects in Brazilan Portuguese: Using the 'Split' Pronominal System as the Basis for an Alternative Analysis Eloisa Pilati a Rozana R. Naves b Heloisa M. Lima Salles c ABSTRACT The goal of this article is to investigate the syntax of subjects in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), developing a unified analysis for referential and non-referential subjects, on the one hand, and for the so-called topic- subject constructions, VS word order clauses, third person subjects with a generic interpretation without the indefinite pronoun ‘se’, existential and meteorological predicates, on the other hand. By hypothesis, in these contexts, the subject is filled by a (null or overt) DP with (spatial/ temporal) locative interpretation. It is claimed that the relevant facts can be accounted for if the pronominal/inflectional system of BP is analysed as displaying a split in two subsystems: one, which is constituted by the first and second person, being inherently definite/ referential, and the other, which is constituted by the third person, being underspecified for the definite/referential feature. Our proposal is that the split in the pronominal/inflectional system is the key to account for the distribution of third person (spatial/ temporal) locative subjects, either lexical or null in BP, both in matrix and embedded clauses. In the discussion, we present previous analyses on the syntax of subjects of BP, pointing out that the absence of consensus is due to their theoretical implementation (which is often complementary), although their contribution converge with respect to the properties of the third person, as well as to the role of discourse orientation, allowing for the presently proposed unification. KEYWORDS: null and overt subjects; Brazilian Portuguese; split pronominal/inflectional system RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é investigar a sintaxe do Português Brasileiro (PB), desenvolvendo uma proposta unificada para os casos de orações com sujeitos referenciais e não-referenciais, por um lado, e de orações a Universidade de Brasília, eloisapilati@gmail.com b Universidade de Brasília, rozanarn@hotmail.com c Universidade de Brasília, heloisasalles@gmail.com We would like to thank the audience of the GTTG 2015 Meeting, for the discussions, with special reference to Anders Holmberg, the invited speaker, for his fine contribution, as well as to Fabio Bonfim Duarte for his careful work leading the organizing committee. We are also grateful to Shigeru Miyagawa, David Pesetsky, C-T. Huang, Mary Kato, Marcello Modesto, Ian Roberts for their interest in our work and for their insightful observations. All errors are our own. This research is supported by CNPq, nº. 460416/2014-6.