Null Noun Research Articles

Bound Noun Pa in Korean

This paper addresses the syntatic aspect of a bound noun pa in Korean. Woo (2006) extensively discusses the bound noun pa in terms of syntax, semantics, and grammaticalization. Woo (2006) argues that there are two different syntactic structures of pa: a relative-clause structure with an ellipsis operation and a noun-complement-clause structure. However, the two structures appear to have empirical problems. Unlike normal relative clauses, pa cannot be separated into two different clauses, and the elided parts cannot have full pronunciation. The problem of the noun complement clause is that pa cannot be modified by adjectives. Given that pa can be replaced by a bound noun kes in general (Woo 2006), we may assume Kim’s (2016) N-to-n movement of kes. However, we find a difference between pa and kes in terms of an adjectival modification pattern. In this paper, I argue that pa directly merges in small n, and it takes an NP complement which is headed by a null noun. This analysis has more explanatory power than Woo (2006) in that it accounts for the related phenomena seamlessly, and its grammaticalized nature is directly reflected in the structure.

Quantifiers in English partitives

This paper proposes a new analysis of English partitives in which a quantifier is immediately followed by an of-phrase. It has been claimed that a partitive contains a null NP, analyzing the of-phrase as an adjunct. The null noun approach, however, does not adequately account for some important characteristics of English partitives. I argue that in a partitive, a quantifier takes an argument of type e, which is syntactically realized as a PP, and denotes a part-of relation. It is therefore proposed that a quantifier can take either an NP or a PP as its complement. I present diachronic evidence to support this dual-function analysis while explaining why every and no are not used with the partitive of-phrase. The proposed analysis has advantages over previous approaches that treat quantifiers in a uniform way.

Some restrictions on Sesotho null noun class prefixes

Some Sesotho nouns may be used without a noun prefix (a phenomenon we refer to as null noun class prefix). There are several studies that deal with this phenomenon in relation to language acquisition (Kunene, 1979; Suzman, 1980; Connelly, 1984; Tsonope, 1987; Demuth, 1988 and Ziesler & Demuth, 1995). Machobane (2003) deals with this phenomenon in Sesotho, paying attention to the determiner phrase (DP) structure. She argues that in some Bantu languages the noun prefix is the head of DP, while in others a phonologically empty D is the head. This difference leads to parametric variations in DP structures. This article explores phonological, morphological, semantic, syntactic and discourse factors that contribute to the null prefix phenomenon. It shows that phonologically null prefixes are associated with the consonants [1], [s] and [d], which are [+coronal]. The prefixes with the consonants [m] and [b], which have the feature [-coronal], do not allow null prefixes (except in the case of class 14). Morphologically, the nouns that have an agreement which is identical to the noun prefix, allow a null prefix, while the ones that have an agreement prefix which is not identical with the noun prefix, do not (except for class 2). Syntactically, a null prefix is possible where there is agreement in the form of the subject verb agreement, noun modifier or copulative complement. At a discourse level, a null prefix appears when a noun expresses given/old information or is salient in the discourse context. However, none of the suggested explanations can account for a null prefix on its own.

Is There a Little Pro? Evidence from Finnish

The traditional view of the null subject as pro identified by Agr (the φ-features of I) cannot be maintained in a theory where Agr is uninterpretable. Two hypotheses are compared with regard to the predictions they make for Finnish null subject constructions: (A) Agr is interpretable in null subject languages, and pro is therefore redundant; (B) null subjects are specified but unpronounced pronouns that assign values to the uninterpretable features of Agr. Since Finnish observes the Extended Projection Principle and has an expletive pronoun, Hypothesis A predicts that null subjects should cooccur with expletives. The prediction is false, favoring B over A. A typology of null subjects is proposed: Null bound pronouns and null generic pronouns in partial null subject languages, including Finnish, are D-less φ, and so are null subjects in consistent null subject languages with Agr, such as Spanish and Greek. Null 1st and 2nd person subjects in Finnish are DPs that are deleted. Null pronouns in languages without Agr, such as Chinese and Japanese, are the only true instances of pro, a minimally specified null noun.

Spanish Applied Linguistics at the Turn of the Millennium

Spanish Applied Linguistics at the Turn of the Millennium. By Ed. Ronald P. Leow and Cristina Sanz. Somerville: Cascadilla, 2000. 234 pages.Spanish Applied Linguistics at the Turn of the Millennium is a collection of papers culled from the 1999 Conference on L1 and L2 Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese. The volume is divided into five sections: morpho-syntax, reading, bilingualism, phonology, and writing. While the choice of these section headings certainly reflects the eclectic nature of Spanish Applied Linguistics, the volume lacks a strong sense of organization and cohesion. Indeed, the editors make only vague illusions to the threads which hold this collection together, emphasizing breadth over depth, and Minimalism over other strands of inquiry in Second Language Acquisition.The section on morphosyntax offers six papers which examine the acquisition of Spanish as either a first or an additional language. Studies by Camps, Collentine, and Geeslin each address issues of interlanguage development among learners of Spanish as a foreign language. Camps, for example, investigates how the introduction of the imperfect tense might influence the ability of novice learners to produce the forms of the preterit tense accurately in written texts and to use these forms correctly in meaningful written contexts. Collentine compares the abilities of advanced adult learners of Spanish to process verbal morphology and sentence-level syntax. Finally, Geeslin draws on insights from both sociolinguistic and semantic-pragmatic studies of copula choice to examine the acquisition of two constructions (ser + adjective and estar + adjective) by seventy-two learners of high-school age with different levels of expertise in Spanish.Three additional papers in this section take a Minimalist approach to the acquisition of Spanish. In a study of the verb forms produced by four Spanish-speaking monolingual children (16-31 months old), Duran argues that even incipient L1 users show an awareness of functional linguistic categories like person and tense. Liceras, Diaz, and Mongeon compare and contrast the acquisition of null noun constructions and the determiner paradigm by adult L1 and child L2 learners of Spanish. The third article in this section addresses the acquisition of the argument structure of Spanish psychological verbs by learners from different linguistic backgrounds. Here, Montrul asks whether the interlanguage grammars of learners from different linguistic backgrounds (L1 = Turkish, L1 = English) are constrained by UG with respect to the acquisition of verbs like asustar, which subcategorize for two thematic roles: an experiencer and a theme. …

Adjectival inflection and the licensing of empty categories in DP

This paper is about the licensing conditions on empty categories in DP, dealing in particular with the distribution of the null nounproin adjectival contexts. I will show thatN-prois submitted to requirements of formal licensing and identification, in which inflexional morphology plays a crucial role. Under this scenario, the contrast between English and other languages with respect to N-procan be attributed to the absence versus presence of inflexional morphology within the nominal domain.