scholarly journals Null subject of purpose clauses and argument ellipsis in Hill Mari

2019 ◽  
Vol XV (2) ◽  
pp. 213-228
Author(s):  
D. Rakhman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Null Subject ◽  
Argument Ellipsis ◽  
Purpose Clauses

Comparative syntax of argument ellipsis in languages without agreement: A case study with Mandarin Chinese

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 643-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
YOSUKE SATO
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Recent Analysis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Argument Ellipsis ◽  
Null Object ◽  
Subject Agreement ◽  
Variable Configuration

This paper investigates the cross-linguistic distribution of argument ellipsis (AE) with an emphasis on Chinese, an Asian language well-known for its lack of overt morphological agreement. It is observed in the literature that Japanese permits AE in both null subject and null object positions whereas Chinese permits it in null object positions, but not in null subject positions. Adopting Saito’s (2007) hypothesis that the presence of $\unicode[STIX]{x03C6}$-feature agreement associated with v or T blocks AE, Miyagawa (2013) and Takahashi (2014) argue that the absence of subject AE in Chinese follows from abstract subject agreement. After presenting three empirical arguments against this analysis from the Chinese literature, I propose that the distribution of AE is better predicted by topichood and link this proposal to Saito’s (2017) recent analysis of AE developed for Japanese, whereby AE, analyzed as LF Copy, cannot apply to an operator–variable configuration. My analysis is supported by the novel observation that the null subject position in Chinese actually allows AE when it is not linked to the topic position, as in hanging topics, relative clauses and conditional clauses.

The Oxford Gothic Grammar

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Gary Miller
Keyword(s):  
Full Range ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Reference Grammar ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Relative Pronouns ◽  
Runic Inscriptions

This reference grammar of Gothic includes much history along with a description of Gothic grammar. Apart from runic inscriptions, Gothic is the earliest attested language of the Germanic family in Indo-European. Specifically, it is East Germanic. Most of the extant Gothic corpus is a 4th-century translation of the Bible, traditionally ascribed to Wulfila. This translation is historically important because it antedates Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. Gothic inflectional categories include nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Nouns are inflected for three genders, two numbers, and four cases. Adjectives also have weak and strong forms, as do verbs. Verbs are inflected for three persons and numbers, indicative and nonindicative mood (here called optative), past and nonpast tense, and voice. The mediopassive survives as a synthetic passive and syntactically in innovated periphrastic formations. Middle and anticausative functions were taken over by simple reflexive structures. Nonfinite are the infinitive, the imperative, and two participles. Gothic was a null subject language. Aspect was effected primarily by prefixes, relativization by relative pronouns built on demonstratives plus a complementizer. Complementizers were the norm with subordinated verbs in the indicative or optative. Switch to the optative was triggered by irrealis (the unreal), matrix verbs that do not permit a full range of subordinate tenses (e.g. hopes, wishes), potentiality, and alternate worlds. Many of these are also relevant to matrix clauses (independent optatives). Essentials of linearization include prepositional phrases, default postposed genitives and possessive adjectives, and preposed demonstratives. Verb-object order predominates, but there is considerable variation. Verb-auxiliary order is native Gothic.

Assessing BERT’s ability to learn Italian syntax: a study on null-subject and agreement phenomena

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaele Guarasci ◽  
Stefano Silvestri ◽  
Giuseppe De Pietro ◽  
Hamido Fujita ◽  
Massimo Esposito
Keyword(s):  
Null Subject

Quantificational Null Objects and Argument Ellipsis

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daiko Takahashi
Keyword(s):  
Traditional View ◽  
Argument Ellipsis ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Null Objects

This article provides a new argument for the analysis of null arguments in terms of ellipsis by considering null objects that behave like quantifiers. It is shown that the presence of quantificational null objects and their scopal property are difficult to accommodate under the traditional view of null arguments as pronouns but are best accounted for by the ellipsis analysis. Among the consequences of the present study are the need to postulate phonetically invisible/inaudible scrambling and its obedience to the economy requirement.

A community-based test of a linguistic hypothesis

1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
San Juan ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Functional Compensation ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Stratified Sample ◽  
Compensation Hypothesis

ABSTRACTThe Functional Compensation Hypothesis (Hochberg 1986a, b) interprets frequent expression of pronominal subjects as compensation for frequent deletion of agreement marking on finite verbs in Puerto Rican Spanish (PRS). Specifically, this applies to 2sg.túwhere variably deleted word-final -smarks agreement. If the hypothesis is correct, finite verbs with agreement deleted in speech should co-occur more frequently with pronominal subjects than finite verbs with agreement intact. Likewise, social dialects which frequently delete agreement should show higher rates of pronominal expression than social dialects which less frequently delete agreement. These auxiliary hypotheses are tested across a socially stratified sample of 62 speakers from San Juan. Functional compensation does show stylistic and social patterning in the category of Specifictú, not in that of Non-specifictú. However, Non-specifictúis the key to frequency differences between -s-deleting PRS and -s-conserving Madrid; hence the Functional Compensation Hypothesis should be discarded. (Functionalism, compensation, null subject, analogy, Spanish, Puerto Rico)

scholarly journals Argument ellipsis in Colloquial Singapore English and the Anti-Agreement Hypothesis

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
YOSUKE SATO
Keyword(s):  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Argument Position ◽  
Comparative Syntax ◽  
Argument Ellipsis ◽  
Principled Explanation ◽  
The Subject

This paper provides new data from Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) showing a hitherto unnoticed subject–object asymmetry: empty objects, but not empty subjects, exhibit sloppy/quantificational readings. According to a recent theory of argument ellipsis in Japanese/Korean (Oku 1998; S. Kim 1999; Takahashi 2007, 2008a, b, 2010), these readings obtain as a result of the LF-Copy of an overt argument from a full-fledged clause onto the corresponding empty argument position in an elliptical clause. Şener & Takahashi (2010) and Takahashi (2010) hypothesize that this operation is blocked by ϕ-agreement. This hypothesis provides a principled explanation for the subject–object asymmetry in CSE, coupled with the new observation that primary substrates of CSE – Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Malay – exhibit the same asymmetry as CSE. My analysis has significant implications for the comparative syntax of argument ellipsis and for theories of contact genesis. Among others, the analysis supports the claim (Miyagawa 2010) that Chinese possesses ϕ-agreement despite the lack of morphological manifestations. The results in this paper also provide strong evidence for the general substratist explanation on the emerging grammar of CSE (Bao 2005).

Null Subjects in Old English

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elly van Gelderen
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
English I

I review the proposal made by Sigurðsson (2011) that null arguments follow from third-factor principles, as in Chomsky 2005 . A number of issues remain unclear: for instance, the kind of topic that licenses null arguments in Modern Germanic, including Modern English. I argue that Old English is pro drop and add to the discussion Frascarelli (2007) started as to which topic licenses a null subject. I agree with Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl (2007) that the licensing topic in Modern Germanic and Old English is an aboutness-shift topic. I also argue that verb movement to C is necessary to license the empty argument in the modern Germanic languages (including Modern English), but not in Old English, since agreement is still responsible for licensing in that language, as in Italian.

scholarly journals The subject, it is here! The varying structural positions of preverbal subjects

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (spe) ◽  
pp. 113-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Acrisio Pires
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Variable Binding ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Structural Positions

This paper analyzes preverbal overt subjects, comparing Brazilian Portuguese to (other) null-subject languages, especially within Romance. It explores syntactic and semantic properties, including resumption, ellipsis, quantifiers and scope, variable binding, ordering restrictions, pronominal distinctions, minimality violations, bare nouns and definiteness. It concludes that preverbal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese can be realized both in argumental positions (Specifier of the Inflectional or Tense Phrase) and non-argumental positions (Topic Phrase specifiers), with the possibility that both types of positions are filled by the subject in the same clause, incorporating properties that have been argued not to be found together in other languages.

scholarly journals ‘Subject’ and EPP in Greek: The discontinuous subject hypothesis

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Philippaki-Warburton ◽  
Vassilios Spyropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Satisfactory Explanation ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Extended Projection ◽  
Theoretical Advantage ◽  
Subject Agreement ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Definition Of

In the present study we examine the notion ‘subject’ in finite clauses in Greek, a null-subject language, and we investigate the connection between the rich morphological marking of subject-agreement on the verb and the definition of this notion. We propose that ‘subject’ in Greek should be analysed as a discontinuous element which consists of a null nominal element in the SpecTP position satisfying the Extended Projection Principle (EPP), associated with a pro at the relevant theta-position inside the VP. We argue that this analysis has not only the theoretical advantage of maintaining the universally strong value of EPP, but also, perhaps more importantly, the descriptive advantage of providing a satisfactory explanation for a number of apparent idiosyncrasies of Greek constructions.

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