ZENGİN UYUM DİLLERİNDE ÖRTÜK VE AÇIK ÖZNELER

Abstract

Chomsky’s (1982) Extended Projection Principle (EPP) seems to be voided in some languages where the reference of subject can be recovered either from the agreement morphology on verb or from discourse where agreement is not available. Known as the null subject phenomenon, this has sparkled a great deal of discussion and cross-linguistic research in theoretical linguistics. Furthermore, null subjects are so common in null subject languages that subjects can only surface under strict conditions. Yet when these conditions are met null subject languages behave like non-null subject languages. That is, under the right discourse conditions subjects have to be overt regardless. I investigate in this paper how and why subjects remain unexpressed as well as how and why they have to be expressed in a null subject language; namely Turkish. In doing so, I reveal novel data contradicting the predictions made by Holmberg (2005, 2010a) regarding the theoretical account and classification of null subject languages. Finally, I offer a minimalist version of the subject deletion method developed by Roberts (2010) for null subjects.