Null Subjects in Early Child English and the Theory of Economy of Projection

Abstract

It is well known that young children may omit referential subjects regardless of whether they are acquiring a pro-drop language such as Italian or a non-pro-drop language such as English. The classic proposal of Hyams (1986) according to which these early null subjects instantiate pro in both types of languages has recently come under attack from various sides. Bloom (1990, 1993) and Valian (1991) argue that missing subjects in early child English are a non-syntactic performance phenomenon that is due to a production bottleneck which severely limits the length of young children’s utterances, a view which they support with an inverse correlation between subject-length (i.e., full NP, pronoun, null) and VP-length. Rizzi (1994a, b) and Hyams (1994) maintain that empty subjects in early child English are a syntactic phenomenon but relate them to adult English Diary Drop and German-style Topic Drop instead of Italian-style pro-drop. In particular, they argue that like adult Diary/Topic Drop and unlike adult pro-drop, these missing subjects in early child language are restricted to the first position of non-wh root clauses.