This thesis examines the comprehension of the empty category and the third person lexical pronoun in object position in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Experimental results show that the processing of BP overt and nonovert objects is consistent with the leading idea underlying the Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) proposed by Montalbetti (84). Experiment 1 compares the processing of overt pronouns and empty categories in object position in BP in structures in which these anaphors are A-bound by a subject and in structures in which they are A-bar-bound by a topic. Results from 48 BP speakers indicate reactivation of the antecedents only by topic-bound gaps and by subject-bound overt pronouns In Experiment 2, the difference between the coreferential vs. bound readings in BP is further investigated by comparing the possibility of the strict and sloppy readings for the overt pronoun and the gap in object position. Based on these experimental results, we argue for the classification of the BP null object as an instance of a null epithet, an empty R-expression with pronominal properties. The experiments are also informative with relation to several theoretical psycholinguistic issues.
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