Experimenting with pro-drop in Telugu and Indian English

Abstract

This paper investigates pronominal subjects dropping in Telugu and Indian English and the severity of first language impact on learning and usage of a second language. Numerous languages from various language families are spoken in India. Many of the languages among them are pro-drop languages. Telugu is a full-fledged consistent null subject language with rich verbal agreement. So, pro-drop is common in spoken Telugu. This paper aims at how first language (L1) influences its rules and morpho-syntactic properties on second language (L2) in relation to pro-drop at various levels. To some extent, pro-drop parameter helps us to understand how the language acquisition takes place in children and adults mind/brain in setting the parameter in a specific language. Based on the empirical evidence, several Telugu-speaking children and adults are examined on how they drop pronouns in spoken Telugu and Indian English.