Abstract
How does a native speaker’s knowledge of her language’s syntax interact with processing factors such as sentence length and complexity? Conversely, how do general cognitive constraints interact with the grammatical properties of individual languages? We explore these questions by focusing on the parameter that licenses null subjects in languages like Italian and prohibits them in languages like English (Chomsky, 1981). The contrast between these two types of languages is illustrated in (1). Without an overt third person subject (e.g., she), the English sentence in 1a is ungrammatical, whereas the corresponding Italian sentence is fully grammatical. Languages like Italian are often referred to as null subject languages. In these languages, the null subject is pro (pronounced ‘‘little pro’’) and is assumed to be a phonologically silent, but syntactically present, element with pronominal properties.
Published Version
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