Topics, Null Arguments and Anaphor Licensing

2012 ◽  
Vol null (25) ◽  
pp. 159-179
Author(s):  
Doo-Won Lee
Keyword(s):  
Null Arguments

Syntactic representation of null arguments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Ruda
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Syntactic Representation ◽  
Independent Features ◽  
Argument Omission ◽  
Type Shifting

Focusing on definite-argument drop, this chapter puts forward the hypothesis that null arguments are minimally represented as [nPn] and maximally as a fully-fledged pronoun ([DP D [PersP Pers [NumP Num [nPn]]]] or [PersP Pers [NumP Num [nPn]]]). The (un)availability of such arguments in a language is a consequence of independent features of its grammar: the lexical specification of its nominalizing n heads (esp. their association with phonetic material) and the avaialbility of post-syntactic type-shifting operations (esp. ι‎). The working of this approach is illustrated mostly with data from English, Polish, and Kashubian. The two latter languages are argued here to differ from English with respect to the inflectional properties of their nouns, as well as with respect to the mechanisms of NP interpretation. The chapter discusses the predictions thehypothesis makes about the identity of null arguments with respect to cross-linguistic variation in the patterns of argument omission.

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.

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.

Null subjects

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-300
Author(s):  
Ian Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Null Subjects ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
General Account ◽  
Article System ◽  
Historical Sketch

After a brief historical sketch of work on null subjects, and a summary of Barbosa’s proposals concerning the relation between partial and radical null subjects, the chapter presents a typology of null arguments which links their properties directly to the D-system, suggesting a cross-linguistic link between the nature of the null-subject system and the nature of the ‘article system’ in a given language. After a brief consideration of the semantics of null pronouns and the role of the Person feature in licensing null arguments, a general account of ‘licensing pro’ is put forward, which relies on the twin ideas that pro contains a variable and that all variables must be bound at the C–I interface. Finally, there is an updated and refined parameter hierarchy for φ‎-parameters. The question of the relation of variation in these features to the C–I interface and the morphophonological interface is also taken up.

Null Arguments in German Child Language

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Hamann
Keyword(s):  
Child Language ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
German Child

Agreement with overt and null arguments in Ingush

Linguistics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Test Case ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Contrast Variation ◽  
Good Test ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Plausible Hypothesis ◽  
Theoretical Issues

Abstract Ingush (Nakh-Daghestanian, Caucasus) offers a variety of contexts with contrast, variation, or speaker choice between agreement and non-agreement and between overt and null arguments, which provide speakers many opportunities to manipulate agreement and argument marking. Ingush discourse is therefore a good test case for the plausible hypothesis that agreement and overt arguments are in complementary distribution. I survey referential density in a corpus of about 5000 words and find no evidence of either straightforward complementarity or expected incidental effects of such complementarity, and some evidence going against it. Some additional, orthogonal distributions were evident, showing that the corpus is large enough to reveal discourse effects if they were present. Ingush agreement is in gender, not person, and there is an arbitrary and strictly lexical bifurcation of verbs into those that do and those that do not have gender agreement; these typological points raise comparative and theoretical issues of interest.

scholarly journals When speech is ambiguous, gesture steps in: Sensitivity to discourse-pragmatic principles in early childhood

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
WING CHEE SO ◽  
ÖZLEM ECE DEMIR ◽  
SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Information Status ◽  
Third Person ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Referential Expressions ◽  
Chinese And English

ABSTRACTYoung children produce gestures to disambiguate arguments. This study explores whether the gestures they produce are constrained by discourse-pragmatic principles: person and information status. We ask whether children use gesture more often to indicate the referents that have to be specified (i.e., third person and new referents) than the referents that do not have to be specified (i.e., first or second person and given referents). Chinese- and English-speaking children were videotaped while interacting spontaneously with adults, and their speech and gestures were coded for referential expressions. We found that both groups of children tended to use nouns when indicating third person and new referents but pronouns or null arguments when indicating first or second person and given referents. They also produced gestures more often when indicating third person and new referents, particularly when those referents were ambiguously conveyed by less explicit referring expressions (pronouns, null arguments). Thus Chinese- and English-speaking children show sensitivity to discourse-pragmatic principles not only in speech but also in gesture.

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