Differences between Korean Null Arguments and Korean Overt Pronouns

The ultimate goal is this paper is to provide five pieces of evidence that Korean null pronouns are not semantically and syntactically equivalent to Korean overt pronouns. First, when Korean overt pronouns and Korean null pronouns have the only NP as their antecedent, the truth condition becomes different. Second, when Korean overt pronouns and Korean null pronouns take the even NP as their antecedent, the truth condition becomes different. Third, the Korean overt pronoun ku ‘he’ is associated with its antecedent by coreference, whereas Korean null pronouns are associated with their antecedent by binding. Fourth, Korean overt pronouns yield a strict reading, whereas Korean null arguments induces the strict/sloppy ambiguity. This in turn suggests that Korean null pronouns yield looser interpretations than Korean overt pronouns. Additionally, it is worth noting that Korean overt pronouns induce a definite reading, whereas Korean null pronouns yield indefinite and definite readings. Fifth, Korean overt pronouns and Korean null pronouns are not alike in that the former is sensitive to phi-features (gender, number, and person), whereas the latter is not. This paper argues that Korean null pronouns are not syntactically the equivalent of Korean overt pronouns.

Licensing null arguments in recipes across languages

While much of the literature on recipe contexts has focused on English and the availability of null definite patients, this paper shows that both null agents and null patients are possible in recipes in a range of typologically and genetically diverse languages. It is proposed that null agents in recipes arise due to a variety of syntactic strategies, but null patients are uniformly licensed via a null topic in the left periphery in all the languages considered. These results indicate that while the recipe register does not directly dictate specific syntactic structures such as imperatives or null objects, the register can provide the pragmatic context necessary for certain syntactic processes, such as null topicalization.

Evaluating the contact hypothesis for Old French word order

This volume revisits the classic and oft-repeated claim that Old French shows a raft of ‘Germanic’ grammatical properties due to contact with Frankish in the early medieval period. These properties include Verb Second, scrambling, Stylistic Fronting, and the loss of the null subject property. Drawing on a mixture of historical, formal syntactic, and acquisitional arguments it is suggested that the hypothesis is extremely problematic and suffers from major empirical and theoretical flaws, alongside major challenges in terms of dating. An alternative scenario is outlined in which left-peripheral verb movement and XP-fronting, middlefield scrambling, Stylistic Fronting, and progressive restrictions on null arguments are natural progressions of the syntactic system attested in late Latin. Finally, it is proposed that the core morphosyntactic parallels between early Germanic and Romance can be captured by their common syntactic inheritance from Proto-Indo-European.

Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential acquisition: Null subjects and null objects in Polish-German bilingualism

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The topic of cross-linguistic influence regarding the overt or null expression of arguments has been frequently considered regarding bilinguals acquiring language pairs in which the null option is licensed by one and not both of the two languages. The goal of this study is to investigate whether simultaneous and sequential bilinguals differ from monolinguals in the case of the acquisition of Polish and German; that is, languages which both license null subjects and null objects, but in which the nature of the null arguments clearly differs. We focus on the acquisition of null arguments as silent but syntactically active bundles of features. Design/methodology/approach: We compare the use of null subjects and null objects by 72 bilingual and 45 monolingual children in experimental setting: acceptability judgement and sentence repetition. Data and analysis: The distribution of null arguments in production and judgement data of simultaneous and early sequential bilinguals was compared to the data of monolinguals. Findings/conclusions: The study has revealed that early sequential Polish-German bilinguals avoid null subjects in L2 German at an advanced stage of acquisition, even though null subjects are quite frequent in their L1. The slower acquisition of null subjects in early L2 German in comparison to null objects in the case of Polish-German bilinguals demonstrates that the dissimilarity between the null subjects in both languages may lead to the delay effect in the acquisition. The findings suggest that the cross-linguistic influence is due to the increased complexity inherent to the integration of syntactic and pragmatic information in case of null arguments. Originality: Unlike previous studies, we focus on the acquisition of null arguments in a language pair, Polish and German, in which the null option is licensed by both grammars, and in which the nature of the null arguments clearly differ.

Variable embedded agent in Sason Arabic

The paper investigates the syntax and semantics of an indirect causative construction, ‘make’ causatives, in Sason Arabic with a focus on the syntax of the embedded structure and the status of the implicit embedded agent. On the basis of several diagnostics, the study demonstrates that ‘make’ embeds an agentive VoiceP, which also manifests an active-passive alternation despite the absence of any morphological reflex. Regarding the nature of the implicit embedded agent, the paper argues that it is present as a free variable à la Heim (1982) generated on the Voice head itself. In so doing, it adds to the ontology of null arguments as well as suggesting that licensing of a grammatical object is dissociated from the projection of a specifier.

On null arguments and phi-features in second language acquisition

Saito, Mamoru. 2007. Notes on East Asian argument ellipsis. Language Research 43. 203–227 argues that argument ellipsis (AE) is available only in languages that lack phi-feature agreement. Accordingly, Japanese, but not English, permits AE. Under Saito’s theoretical framework, this paper compares experimental data from L1 Japanese learners of L2 English (J-EFL) and L1 English learners of L2 Japanese (E-JFL). Given that sloppy and quantificational reading arises from an ellipsis operation (Hankamer, Jorge & Sag, Ivan. 1976. Deep and surface anaphora. Linguistic Inquiry 7. 391–426, Takahashi, Daiko. 2008. Noun phrase ellipsis. In Miyagawa, Shigeru & Saito, Mamoru (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Japanese linguistics, 394–422. Oxford: Oxford University Press, among others), we hypothesize that J-EFL learners, but not E-JFL learners, allow the reading in point with null arguments: AE is available only in the grammar of J-EFL learners, forced by the lack of phi-features in their L2 English grammar, due to L1 transfer. The results from our main study adopting a truth value judgement task supported the hypothesis. Based on our finding, we suggest that correct L2 phi-feature specification can ultimately be obtained when no phi-features are present in L1 (Ishino, Nao. 2012. Feature transfer and feature learning in universal grammar: A comparative study of the syntactic mechanism for second language acquisition. Doctoral dissertation: Kwansei Gakuin University, Miyamoto, Yoichi. 2012. Dainigengo-ni okeru hikenzaiteki-na yōso-ni kansuru Ichikōsatsu [A study on null elements in second language acquisition]. Paper presented at the 84th ELSJ annual general meeting: Senshu University, 26 May).

On null objects in Egyptian Arabic

This paper provides a descriptive account and a syntactic analysis of the grammatical distribution and properties of null objects (NOs) in Egyptian Arabic. In particular, it is shown that NOs cannot be analyzed as instances of null pro or as variables bound by a null topic operator. A Verb-Stranding VP-Ellipsis account is also shown to be empirically non-viable. Instead, I argue that NOs result from Argument Ellipsis (AE), an operation that targets arguments for deletion at PF. This AE analysis has several empirical advantages, including an account for (a) the different-entity interpretation of NOs, (b) the fact that PP and CP internal arguments can be null, (c) the availability of both strict identity and sloppy identity readings with null PPs and CPs, (d) the indefiniteness and inanimacy restrictions on the antecedents of NOs, and (e) the fact that subjects, as opposed to objects, cannot undergo AE. Following existing proposals in the generative literature on null arguments, I provide a minimalist implementation of the AE operation, whereby principles of φ-agreement, case licensing, the NP/DP distinction, and a notion of relativized phasehood, all conspire to determine when NOs occur and when they are disallowed in the language.