Three partial pro-drop languages
Anders HolmbergAarti NayuduMichelle Sheehan
University of NewcastleUniversity of DurhamUniversity of Newcastle
The paper is a comparison of three languages, geographically and genetically quite distant from each other, but all exhibiting partial pro-drop. It is intended to shed new light on the syntax of null argumentsand, more generally, on the limits of syntactic variation.
Brazilian Portuguese (BP), Finnish, and Marathi are partial pro-drop languages in the sense of Holmberg (2005), which means that they allow a null subject, but only if it is(a) controlled by an antecedent in a higher clause, or (b) has generic interpretation (null ‘one’).
(1)a.Pedro disse que Ø ganhou na loto.(Brazilian Portuguese)
Pedro said that won on the-lottery ‘Pedro said that he won on the lottery.’
b. Aqui não pode nadir.
here not can swim ‘One can’t swim here.’
(2) a. Pertti sanoi että Ø voitti lotossa.(Finnish)
Pertti said that won on-lottery
b. Täällä ei voi uida.
here not can swim‘One can’t swim here.’
(3) a. Ram mhanala ki Ø lotteri jinkla.(Marathi)
Ram said that lottery won
b. Hya khurchiwar aaramani bushushakto.
this chair-on comfort-with sit ‘One can sit comfortably in this chair.’
Property (b) is diagnostic of partial pro-drop languages; Full pro-drop languages, in the sense of languages which allow referential null subjects without an antecedent, never have a generic null subject. Full pro-drop languages have a D-feature in T which licenses the deficient null pronoun. Partial pro-drop languages lack this feature, and therefore have to rely either on control by a higher DP or, as a last resort, generic interpretation. We will show that the clause-internal syntax, i.e. the derivationof the null subject, is essentially the same in the three languages.Where they differ is in the conditions on the relation between the antecedent and the null subject. In BP the antecedent should be in the next clause up c-commanding the null subject (as in (1a)).In Finnish the antecedent must be in the next clause up, but, as long as there is only one possible antecedent, need not c-commandthe null subject.
(4)Se oli pettymys Jarilleettei Øsaanut lukea latinaa koulussa.
It was disappointment Jari-to that-not could study Latin school-at
‘It was a disappointment to Jari that he could not study Latin at school.’
In (spoken) Marathi the conditions are even less strict: the antecedent can be in a separate sentence:
(5) Tina kaay karte?(Ti) vaachate.
Tina what doesshe reads‘What is Tina doing?’ ‘She’s reading.’
We will discuss some alternative explanations of this variation, including (a) It is due to differences in the agreement systems of the three languages, or (b), to differences in the pronominal systems, or (c)to differences in complementation. An initially attractive idea is that the relation between the antecedent and the null subject is movement in BP, non-obligatory control in Finnish, and topic-drop in Marathi. There are reasons to reject this hypothesis, though: One is that BP allows null subjects in clauses which are islands for movement, and also allows exceptions to the c-command condition.. Another is that the locality conditions on the relation between the antecedent and the null subject in Marathi are stricter than expected from information-structurally conditioned topic drop.
Holmberg, A. 2005. ‘Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish.’ Linguistic Inquiry 36, 4.