On null subjects and null objects in generative grammar

Abstract

The aim of this article is to provide a critical review of both the phenomenology and the many and diverse generative (up to and including minimalist) analyses of null subjects and null objects. Data drawn from a wide range of genetically unrelated and structurally diverse languages indicate that the conditions that license and identify null subjects and null objects remain to be fully isolated, and that a single or a few syntactic parameters may never be adequate in accounting for them. The reason is that different (groups of) languages may require different licensing and identification strategies, some of which are clearly pragmatic/discourse in nature, as in the case of Chinese, Imbabura Quechua, and Old Icelandic. As a step toward accounting for null subjects and null objects in these languages, the last section outlines a novel approach to the identification of them, one couched in the neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora I have developed in Y. Huang

Markedness in phonology and in syntax: the problem of grounding

“…Yan Huang (1992Huang ( , 1995aHuang ( , 1995b. Pro-drop phenomena have since been subject to a number of successful optimality-theoretic analyses: e.g.…”

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

“…As a result, explicit forms must be used to indicate even the given information in the preceding example (i.e., 1 st and 2 nd person). However, as in Chinese, discourse factors do influence the choice of referential expression in English (e.g., Chafe, 1976, 1994, 1996; Huang, 1994, 1995; Levinson, 1987; Levinson, 1991). For example, less explicit forms are typically used instead of more explicit forms for previously mentioned referents ( I and you are used, rather than the speakers' names, in the preceding example).…”

Turkish- and English-speaking children display sensitivity to perceptual context in the referring expressions they produce in speech and gesture

“…The previous literature leaves the role of pronouns in pro-drop languages (e.g., Turkish, Chinese, Korean) ambiguous. In some studies, pronouns pattern with attenuated forms like omitted arguments; in other studies, they pattern with overt forms like nouns (Allen, 2000; Clancy, 1993; Gürcanli et al, 2006; Huang, 1994). We suggest that pronouns (specifically those used for a deictic function) serve a dual role in languages that allow argument omission (pro-drop languages) as a function of gesture—they behave like specified nouns when they are disambiguated by gesture, but like attenuated forms when they are not.…”

“…Like English, Turkish also uses nouns to specify referents that are not available in the perceptual or discourse context. However, in Turkish, referents that are available are often omitted completely from the discourse (i.e., they are conveyed using omitted arguments; Allen, 2000; Clancy, 1993; Gürcanli et al, 2007; Huang, 1994). …”