Radical Pro Drop and Fusional Pronominal Morphology in Colloquial Singapore English: Reply to Neeleman and Szendrői

Sato, Yosuke

doi:10.1162/ling_a_00046

Cited by 7 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…For instance, (i) subjects of imperatives tend to be null ( cf . Bennis, 2006 on Dutch), (ii) null subjects of finite matrix and embedded clauses are observed in certain varieties of English, such as diary British English (Haegeman and Ihsane, 2001 ) or Colloquial Singapore English (Sato, 2011 ; Sato and Kim, 2012 ), (iii) null subjects are also licensed in certain varieties of French—one of the few non-pro-drop Romance languages ( cf . Roberge, 1990 ; Zribi-Hertz, 1994 , as well as Roberts, 2010b for a critical review of the data), and (iv) Rosenkvist ( 2009 ) emphasizes that, even if null subjects are licensed in none of the modern Germanic standard languages, they are in many modern vernaculars (Zürich German, Schwabian, Bavarian, Lower Bavarian, Frisian, Övdalian and Yiddish).…”

Section: Reversing the Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“… 9 Above, following Haegeman and Ihsane ( 2001 ), Sato ( 2011 ), and Sato and Kim ( 2012 ) I suggested that certain varieties of English allow pro-drop. But as discussed by Mack et al ( 2012 ) and Frazier ( 2015 ), standard English does not, and the occasional dropping of subjects results from performance factors, where predictable material is reduced.…”

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Reversing the Approach to Null Subjects: A Perspective from Language Acquisition

Duguine

2017

Front. Psychol.

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This paper proposes a new model for null subjects, and focuses on its implications for language development. The literature on pro-drop generally considers that not allowing null subjects is, informally speaking, the “default” option in natural languages, and appeals to particular morphosyntactic mechanisms in order to account for those languages in which the subject can be omitted. Shifting the perspective, the inverse approach postulates that pro-drop is (almost) a default grammatical setting, and that non-pro-drop results from the intervention of independent factors that block pro-drop in the derivation. The paper explores the consequences of the inverse approach in the domain of language acquisition, arguing that this model allows to account for a number of properties of child languages. It opens an avenue of research worth exploring, one that could give new solutions to old problems.

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Section: Reversing the Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Reversing the Approach to Null Subjects: A Perspective from Language Acquisition

Duguine

2017

Front. Psychol.

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“…It has been a consensus view in the literature on CSE (Bao 2001;2015;Bao & Lye 2005;Sato 2011;2013;; see also many other references cited therein) that its syntax has received non-negligible, systemic, contact-induced influences from various regional varieties of Chinese, including Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin and, to a lesser extent, vernacular varieties of Malay (Bazaar Malay and Baba Malay), in diverse syntactic areas such as pro-drop/argument ellipsis, bare conditional structures and, importantly for our purposes, the syntax of wh-questions. Given the merits of the Chinese substratist explanation amply documented in the CSE literature, one may well suggest, with some degree of confidence, that the availability of both the wh-in-situ and wh-movement options in this particular English variety owes itself to grammatical changes brought about by constant contact pressures imposed by Standard English (the lexifier language) and Sinitic (the substrate language) within its dynamic, endogenous contact ecology.…”

Section: Feature Underspecification or Contact Dynamics? Evidence Fromentioning

confidence: 99%

<i>Wh</i>-questions in Singapore English tell us what about questions with declarative syntax?

Sato

Ngui

2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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Bobaljik & Wurmband (2015) have recently developed a hypothesis that no language truly mixes wh-movement and wh-in-situ structures in its syntax, with seemingly optional wh-in-situ in a wh-movement language being analyzed as a question with declarative syntax. In this paper, we will present novel data from Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) which question this hypothesis. Instead of assuming that the Q-feature of the interrogative C WH head in a language must be specified in a binary manner (valued or unvalued), we will propose that this feature is underspecified in languages such as CSE. The proposed amendment is not only sufficiently restrictive to cover the type of languages predicted by B&W's original hypothesis, but also flexible enough to accommodate languages with a mixed wh-system. We will further argue that contact-based explanations, though plausible, do not have to be taken as a reason for CSE to develop this specific trait, which could have developed under independent, non-contact situations. This position is supported by Malay and Ancash Quechua, two non-contact languages which nonetheless exhibit optional wh-in-situ like CSE.

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“…Under the second analysis, no passive morpheme is postulated, because no passive feature is generated, and the agent of the active verb eat [+active] is assumed to be pro . Postulating pro is not an ad hoc stipulation required only for the present case, given the well‐established fact that Singapore English displays robust pro ‐drop phenomena (Platt and Weber ; Gupta ; Alsagoff and Ho ; Bao ; Tan , , ; Sato ; Sato and Kim ), as can be seen from the liberal omission of subjects, objects, and possessors in 13 (omitted pronouns are underlined.). (13) After pro get some sickness, pro can't help it.…”

Section: A New Kena‐passive Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More onKena‐passives in Singapore English

Kim

Sato

2013

World Englishes

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In the so‐called kena‐passive construction in Singapore English (Bao and Wee ), the morphosyntactic realization of the passive feature of irregular verbs is optional (John kena caught/?catch) in contrast to the obligatory realization of the same feature within the English‐derived be‐passive (John was caught/*catch). We propose that this asymmetry follows from the hybrid syntactic structures of the kena‐passive construction. Specifically, we argue that the verb kena allows not only the standard passive structure of the type discussed by Bao and Wee but also the active structure which embeds a sentential complement comprised of pro and the active verb. This analysis is supported by a variety of arguments regarding the kena‐active complement structure independently available in Singapore English (Yap and Lim ) as well as Chinese (Feng ; Huang ) and Baba Malay (Ansaldo and Matthews ), which have been hypothesized in the literature as the two major substrate languages of Singapore English.

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Radical Pro Drop and Fusional Pronominal Morphology in Colloquial Singapore English: Reply to Neeleman and Szendrői

Cited by 7 publications

References 16 publications

Reversing the Approach to Null Subjects: A Perspective from Language Acquisition

Reversing the Approach to Null Subjects: A Perspective from Language Acquisition

<i>Wh</i>-questions in Singapore English tell us what about questions with declarative syntax?

More onKena‐passives in Singapore English

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