Null Subjects Research Articles

L2 acquisition of Japanese null arguments

Abstract Adopting the anti-agreement hypothesis that argument ellipsis is allowed in languages lacking φ-feature agreement, the present study investigates whether second language (L2) learners of φ-feature agreement languages (L1-English L2 learners of Japanese; ELJs) and L2 learners of anti-agreement languages (L1-Mandarin Chinese L2 learners of Japanese; CLJs) can access sloppy interpretations of Japanese null arguments. The results concerning null subjects indicate that both L2 groups behaved similarly to Japanese native speakers (JNSs) by allowing the sloppy reading of null subjects. However, further analysis by L2 proficiency revealed distinct patterns. Intermediate ELJs exhibited L1-transfer of φ-feature agreement, assigning null subjects the strict reading, while the advanced ELJs were able to discard the φ-feature, allowing the sloppy reading. In contrast, CLJs accepted the sloppy reading from the intermediate level, indicating that the absence of the φ-feature functioned as positive transfer. Regarding the results with null objects, both L2 groups performed like JNSs, allowing the sloppy interpretation. Assuming that deleting a feature present in L1 is more difficult than adding a feature absent in L1 to L2, we will explain the results in terms of L1 transfer.

Pro-drop in Farsi: A Case Study of Bilingual Speakers

This research is meant to uncover some of the internal grammatical structure of bilingual Farsi speakers who have English as their dominant language. Bilinguals, whose mother tongue is Farsi but whose dominant language is English, are influenced by their dominant language on their mother tongue concerning pro-drop. One of the issues often seen in bilingual speakers of null subject languages is the use of pro-drop in languages such as Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, Slavic languages, and Arabic. This paper will demonstrate how these bilingual speakers incorrectly use the null subjects in their sentences and in addition, how SEN children i.e. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) understand and use the pronoun-dropping phenomenon. Choosing a null pronoun in the non-dominant language seems unacceptable to some speakers because their dominant language lacks pro-drop; therefore, in certain situations, researchers might say that these bilingual speakers do not sound as fluent in their native language as they do in their dominant language. The main focus of this research is the investigation into the preference of bilingual speakers as well as ASD children of English and Farsi and their use of pro-drop

D-features or ellipsis in null subject licensing? Evidence from Brazilian and European Portuguese

Abstract Holmberg (Holmberg, Anders. 2005. Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. Linguistic Inquiry 36(4). 533–564) and its revised version in Holmberg et al. (Holmberg, Anders, Aarti Nayudu & Michelle Sheehan. 2009. Three partial null-subject languages: A comparison of Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, and Marathi. Studia Linguistica 63(1). 59–97) derive the availability of null subjects in a given language from the interaction between T with/without a D(efiniteness)-feature and the features of subject pronouns. Their theory predicts the existence of consistent null subject languages, whose T has the D-feature, and partial null subject languages, whose T lacks the D-feature. This paper examines this D-feature approach to null subjects against the empirical evidence provided by Brazilian Portuguese, a partial null subject language, and European Portuguese, a consistent null subject language, showing that it cannot account for the range of microvariation observed with respect to different null subject pronouns and the type of T (finite vs. participle vs. gerund). We argue that, in comparison, the ellipsis account of null subject licensing put forward in Martins and Nunes (Martins, Ana Maria & Jairo Nunes. 2021. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages. In Sergio Baauw, Frank Drijkoningen & Luisa Meroni (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2018. Selected papers from “Going Romance” 32, Utrecht, 171–190. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins) fares better. It retains from Holmberg (Holmberg, Anders. 2005. Is there a little pro? Evidence from Finnish. Linguistic Inquiry 36(4). 533–564 et seq.) the insight that the licensing of null subjects depends on the interaction between the features of T and the features of subject pronouns but resorts only to ϕ-features and Case. Crucially, it relies on the (theoretically and empirically) plausible assumption that the relation between abstract ϕ-features and verbal agreement morphology need not be transparent.

The interpretation of null and overt subject pronouns in Spanish compared to Greek and Italian

In recent years, several studies have suggested that Null Subject Languages (NSLs) do not exhibit uniform behaviour in all respects. This paper aims to determine whether the interpretation of null and overt subject pronouns in Spanish differs from that in two other NSLs: Italian and Greek. To this end, we replicated the sentence interpretation experiment conducted by Torregrossa et al. (2020) on Greek and Italian to obtain a fully comparable set of data.The results indicate that Spanish differs significantly from both Italian and Greek in the interpretation of null and overt pronouns. Spanish participants accept null subjects referring to both subject and object antecedents to the same extent. The same pattern is observed for overt subject pronouns. To explain the observed differences, we propose that two properties of its grammar influence the interpretation of null subjects and overt pronouns in Spanish: i) a flexible word order, allowing for SVO, VSO, and VOS; and ii) the existence of differential object marking (DOM). We hypothesise that these two factors may affect antecedent selection, thereby partially accounting for the differences observed among the languages under consideration.

Agree, agreement dissociation and subject ellipsis. Towards a new characterization of the Null Subject Parameter

Abstract This paper offers a new characterization of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP). I contend that the NSP must be modeled referring to two main properties of the Agree/agreement systems: (i) presence/absence of abstract Agree, and (ii) presence/absence of agreement dissociation at PF. The first property results in the division between radical argument ellipsis languages of the Japanese type and consistent null subject languages of the Spanish type, including languages like Central Trentino, i.e., languages with some obligatory clitic subjects but with rich agreement and free inversion. The second property results in the division between consistent null subject languages and consistent non-null subject ones. The agreement dissociation hypothesis also accounts for the partial null subject type, which characterizes languages like Brazilian Portuguese that have impoverished agreement expansion at PF (perhaps, only for number features). From a theoretical point of view, this study focuses on the agreement dissociation property showing why abstract Agree cannot guarantee subject ellipsis even in those perplexing cases in which it produces enough agreement distinctions at PF. The reason is that only an expanded agreement morpheme adjoined to the T0 node can serve as a licit antecedent for ellipsis of a subject D0 head at PF. Therefore, the theory derives the bimorphemic principle in Koeneman and Zeijlstra (Koeneman, Olaf & Hedde Zeijlstra. 2021. Pro-drop and the morphological structure of inflection. Ms. Available at: https://www.heddezeijlstra.org/bio) without further ado, i.e., the observation that null subject properties correlate with a bimorphemic T0 node expressing tense and agreement separately.

The Setting of the Null Subject Parameters across (Non-)Null-Subject Languages

This article explores a learning model for acquiring a variety of null and non-null-subject languages (i.e., consistent, partial, semi and non-null-subject languages). This model builds upon a version of the Null Subject Parameter(s) based on the “Borer-Chomsky Conjecture” (BCC), which assumes that the presence or absence of a D(definiteness)-feature in different functional heads, together with EPP (Extended projection principle) related features, account for the distributions of null subjects in a complex typology of (non-)null-subject languages. This BCC-based learning model assumes the hypothesis that children, in order to learn the pattern of null subjects in their language, need to look at the morphology of functional elements. By reviewing acquisition studies, I examine whether the model is compatible with the data. I argue that there is no evidence of parameter missetting in any of the languages examined, and that children’s early sensitivity to functional elements suggests that the BCC-based learning model is a suitable theory for the acquisition of null subjects.

Pronoun interpretation in intermediate-advanced L2 English speakers: L2 to L1 cross-linguistic effects

Aims and objectives: L2 learners who speak a null subject (L1 Spanish) and a non-null subject language (L2 English) may experience cross-linguistic interference from the L2 on L1 pronoun interpretation. In this study, we test pronoun interpretation in the L1 and L2 of adult learners, in comparison with two groups of monolingual speakers, to assess if L1 pronoun interpretation can change as a result of L2 acquisition at intermediate-advanced levels of L2 proficiency and in the absence of long L2 immersion. Methodology: A group of L2 English speakers (L1 Spanish) participated in two offline sentence comprehension tasks where they interpreted pronouns in the L1 and L2. The results are compared with English and Spanish monolingual speakers. Data and analysis: We find that adult English learners comprehend pronouns in their L1 (Spanish) differently than Spanish monolingual speakers, demonstrating a strong subject bias for interpreting null and overt pronouns. In addition, we show that pronoun interpretation patterns acquired in the L2 explain the changes to L1 interpretation biases. Conclusions: The results of this study significantly advance the understanding of the factors that contribute to bilingual language comprehension, showing the permeability of the L1 comprehension system at the discourse level as soon as the L2 sets in.

Null subject pronouns in Papiá Kristang (Malacca Creole Portuguese)

This paper investigates variation in the subject pronoun expression (SPE) in Papiá Kristang (Malacca Creole Portuguese), a language without verb inflection. Previous accounts of Kristang (Baxter, 1988, 2012b; Hancock, 1969, 1973; Knowlton, 1964; Rêgo, 1942) present the language as predominantly displaying overt subject pronouns. However, the overall null subject pronoun rate in the oral corpus contemplated is substantial, registering a frequency of 45.7% (input pr. 0.32). As such, the paper focusses on the distribution of null subject pronouns and the constraints directing that distribution. The study considers the effects of priming, structural location, verb semantic class, and tense-mood-aspect (TMA), and addresses the effect of the individual speaker. It is found that while null subject pronoun use in Papiá Kristang resembles, with minor differences, many attributes of this mechanism in other languages, it displays one notable trait: TMA particles favor null subject pronoun use. Extralinguistic constraints on SPE within the Papiá Kristang speech community are seen to concern more the characteristics of individual speakers, and clusters of individuals, rather than predictors based on a pan-community age and gender classification.

Subject–verb agreement: Three experiments on Catalan

This study delves into the syntactic parsing abilities of children and infants exposed to Catalan as their first language. Focusing first on ages 3 to 6, we conducted two sentence-picture matching tasks. In experiment 1, 3 to 4-year-old children failed in identifying singular third-person subjects within null-subject sentences, although they performed above chance in all other scenarios, including plural third-person subjects and sentences with overt full DP subjects. This is reminiscent of the results of Pérez-Leroux for Spanish. In experiment 2, with the same design but involving numeral distractors, children’s performance was above chance level across all conditions from age 3 to 4. Then, in experiment 3, we moved to a younger age range with the help of eye-tracking techniques. The findings revealed that infants at 22 months had the ability to parse subject–verb agreement in sentences with third-person null subjects, and at 19 months there was evidence of parsing for third-person plural null subjects. These findings are inconsistent with the perception of children grappling with syntactic agreement computation. We argue that instances of underperformance in subject–verb agreement parsing identified in the literature often stem from task-related and pragmatic issues rather than core syntactic delay. If so, the putative asymmetry between early production of verbal inflection and late comprehension disappears; rather, the results suggest early establishment of matching operations and mastery of language-specific agreement properties before production starts.

Processing reflexives in adjunct control: an exploration of attraction effects

Abstract Previous research has demonstrated that dependencies between reflexives and their licensors resist attraction effects from structurally illicit but feature-matching attractors. However, mechanisms guiding reflexive licensing in control clauses remain insufficiently explored. To address this gap, this paper examines whether reflexives in adjunct control clauses primarily seek their licensors within the same clause (i.e., from the null subject) or access noun phrases in higher clauses by probing attraction effects from attractors in the higher clauses. The licensing of the null subject is dependent on the animacy requirement of the main clause subject. Therefore, if the reflexive searches for its licensor from the higher clause, the gender manipulation of noun phrases in the higher clause should exclusively impact the reflexive processing, not the null subject licensing. A self-paced reading task reveals that the licensing of reflexives is sensitive to attraction effects, but only when the overall gender feature of the main clause subject is complex. This finding suggests that reflexives in adjunct control clauses do not exclusively rely on the null subject as a licensor; instead, they extend their search beyond the local domain of the adjunct clause, using gender cues. The observed selective attraction effects support the notion that the distinctiveness of the main clause subject matters.

On the rapid use of verb-control information in sentence processing.

A central topic in psycholinguistics is the study of how and when the parser assigns an antecedent to referentially-dependent elements. One such referentially-dependent element is the null subject of non-finite clauses. The aim of the present study was to examine the role of verb control information in the assignment of an antecedent to such a null subject. The results so far are inconclusive. Some authors argue that verb control information has a late influence, whereas others argue that such verb-specific information has a very rapid influence. We report a self-paced reading study in Spanish in which verb type (subject vs. object control) and grammaticality (grammatical vs. ungrammatical) were manipulated. The grammaticality manipulation was carried out by introducing a person anomaly at the infinitive itself, and not at a later word (e.g., "Te prometí/aconsejé adelgazarme/adelgazarte cinco quilos en un mes." Literal translation, "I to you promised/advised to losemyself/yourself five kilos in a month"). With such a manipulation we can examine whether at the first possible point (i.e., the infinitive) verb control information was used to assign the correct antecedent (i.e., the subject in sentences with a subject-control verb, and the object in sentences with an object-control verb) to PRO. The results showed that at the infinitive there was a main effect of grammaticality, meaning that the correct antecedent has already been assigned to PRO. The present findings are consistent with models that assume that verb-specific information plays an important role in the initial stages of sentence processing.

Subject Alternation and Antecedent Preference in Romanian

In this paper, we will study the use of null pronouns on the one hand and the interpretation of null and pronominal subjects on the other hand in Romanian. While both questions have been studied across a wide range of Romance languages, empirical data on Romanian are still missing in the literature. Our first three experiments, using a binary choice of possible answers to questions, show that null subjects are generally preferred in Romanian. This preference is, however, modified by the contrast effect with more pronominal subjects when there is an alternative explicit or presupposed referent in the context. In our fourth experiment, we find that, as in other Romance languages, null subjects prefer a subject antecedent while pronominal subjects prefer a non-subject antecedent, showing the typical division of labour effect. The preference for null subjects in our experiment is slightly smaller than in Italian or European Portuguese, two languages that show a stronger division of labour effect with near categorical choices of subject and object antecedents for null and pronominal subjects, respectively. Preferences found for Romanian resemble those found for Spanish. We argue that the frequency of null subjects in a language may play a role in the strength of the division of labour effect.

Особенности референции субъектов в русских пословицах с формами третьего лица

The article investigates the peculiarities of subject reference in Russian proverbs with third-person forms. The aim of the research is to identify the referential mechanisms of generalisation of the subjects who act in proverbs. The main source of empirical material is Russian proverbs from V.I. Dal’s collection (over 1,500 proverbs). The research methodology is based on A.V. Bondarko’s theory of categorical situations and the theory of reference by E.V. Paducheva, T.V. Bulygina and A.D. Shmelev. The study considered the ranking of subject statuses and the means of their transmission; the correlation between referential classes of nouns (qualitative, functional, relational) and their semantic groups (by occupation, personality, etc.); referential transit (transition from one class to another). The main generalisation mechanisms have been identified in proverbs as follows: genre frame, common nouns and noun groups with the meaning of person; specific means of generalisation (proper names, personal pronouns, null subject); and figurative use of names (zoonyms, artifacts, and anthroponyms). Each of these types has demonstrated the ability to vary the degree of subject reference, thus narrowing or expanding its scope. The highest, generalised level of reference is retained in those proverbs where subjects are expressed by quantifier pronouns, including in combination with the lexical unit human. In other cases, subjects implement the generic type of reference with the option of increasing or decreasing the level of reference. A special type of reference, i.e. conditionally referential, has been considered, which is implemented by zoonyms and artifacts, as well as by anthroponyms in figurative use. It has been noticed that high combinability of third-person verb forms with various means of expressing the subjects in proverbs predetermines their substantial referential potential. Stable relations between semantic groups of nouns and referential classes (qualitative class: external and internal characteristics of a person, gender, age, ethnicity, etc.; functional class: naming units according to activity; relational class: according to the relations) have been determined. Conditionally referential naming units (zoonyms and artifacts) correlate with qualitative and relational classes. In general, all classes include their respective semantic groups, but referential transits have been recorded. The qualitative name class turned out to be the most stable one: only internal transit, in which the semantic group of nouns changes, has been detected. The rest of the classes showed a tendency to external transit: functional and relational classes may perform referential transit to the qualitative class; and functional names may transit to the relational class. Thus, proverbs with third-person forms represent a range of referential statuses of subjects.

Pro-Drop in Hijazi Arabic: A Minimalist Perspective

This paper focuses on investigating the null subjects in Hijazi Arabic and addresses how they are derived and interpreted. There is a strong connection between rich verbal agreement inflection and pro-drop in HA due to the language's highly inflectional nature. It is shown in this paper that HA is a consistent null subject language. This study is framed within Holmberg's (2005, 2010) theory of null subjects. Holmberg proposed that null subjects (henceforth NSs) are defective subject pronouns labeled Ps. The null subjects are derived via incorporation into T after the features valuation and union take place. The head T (a probe) has unvalued -features which are valued by the defective subject pronoun (a goal) and in return, the [u case] feature on P is valued by T. The incorporation of P into T forms a chain which is subject to chain reduction where the lower chain copy (the defective subject pronoun in spec-VP) receives a null spell out. The pronounced elements consist of the valued φ-features of T, which manifest as a verbal affix on the finite verb subsequent to the verb's incorporation into T. This reflects the deletion of the subject in spec-VP. The null subject is interpreted as a definite 3rd person null subject when the [uD(efiniteness)] feature of P is valued by an A-Topic (antecedent) in spec-TopP. On the other hand, it is interpreted as a definite 1st or 2nd person null subject if it is valued by speaker/addressee features in the domain of C (Complementizer).

Overt and null subjects in Bulgarian: comparing monolingual adults and children to child heritage speakers in Germany in their use of Bulgarian

ABSTRACT This study investigates the use of overt and null subjects in Bulgarian in child heritage speakers with L2 German. The alternation of overt and null pronominal subjects in null-subject languages like Bulgarian depends on grammatical and discourse conditions and contrasts with German. Oral narratives were elicited in Bulgarian, comparing the performance of the heritage children to that of monolingual children and adults. Overall 68 Bulgarian narratives of 39 speakers were analysed as to the use of overt and null pronominal subjects in topic-continuity and topic-shift contexts. The results reveal similar subject realisation for all speakers, supporting early acquisition of null-subject grammars. Analyses of topic-continuity and -shift contexts showed similar overall patterns in children’s and adults’ subject use, with children producing somewhat more overt subjects in topic-continuity and ambiguous overt pronouns in topic-shift contexts than adults. However, the bilinguals used significantly more ambiguous null subjects than monolinguals. These results suggest that fine-grained discourse constraints of null-subject grammars are more difficult for bilinguals to acquire and maintain. The near adult-like performance of the bilinguals in some contexts can be attributed to the fact that most of them were Bulgarian-dominant and received non-attrited parental input. Differences are also attributable to cross-linguistic influence.

Overt and Covert Subjects in Uyghur: Not the same thing

Overt nominative-marked indexicals in Uyghur attitude reports are known to undergo obligatory shifting and trigger matching agreements. This paper challenges the prevailing view that the covert subject is parallel to its overt nominative counterpart. We evaluate several hypotheses that consider covert subjects to be true indexicals, but we find that none of them can fully explain all the observed readings. Drawing inspiration from previous studies on null subject licensing in Partial Null Subject languages, we suggest that the covert subject in Uyghur functions as an anaphor, while the overt subject is an indexical. The recognition of their differences opens up the possibility of associating Uyghur covert subjects with other non-indexical elements, thereby contributing to our understanding of indexical shift.

Indefinite readings of referential null subjects and null objects in Spanish

Indefinite readings of referential null subjects and null objects in Spanish

Subject realization in Greek preschool learners of English

Languages differ in their realization of the subject argument: non-null-subject languages, like English, require subjects to be phonologically overt; rather, null-subject languages, like Greek, allow the subject to be overt or null. This cross-linguistic difference can lead to the transfer of grammatical properties across languages during bilingual language acquisition. The direction of crosslinguistic transfer is known to be affected by structural overlap and linguistic dominance. This exploratory study was conducted to establish whether structural overlap or linguistic dominance affect the production patterns of Greek children who acquire English at preschool. If structural overlap determines the direction of transfer, then children will overuse overt subjects in Greek; if dominance determines the direction of transfer, then children will overuse null subjects in English. Two groups of Greek children (between 3;6–4;5 and 4;6–5;8) attending a monolingual English immersion programme in Greece participated in a novel oral elicitation task that tested their use of null and overt subjects in both languages. Both groups produced significantly more null and fewer overt subjects in English than an English monolingual control group, but the same number of null and overt subjects in Greek as a Greek monolingual control group. This finding suggests that the preschoolers, who start learning English at 3;0 years, experience crosslinguistic transfer from Greek, their dominant language, to English – thus highlighting the role that dominance plays in determining the direction of crosslinguistic transfer among successive bilingual children.

Obviating the mood, but mostly under control: Spanish heritage speakers’ acquisition of the binding constraints of desiderative complements

ABSTRACT Verbal morphology has been identified as a particularly vulnerable domain for adult heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish, especially when it involves the selection of subjunctive mood. A minimal amount is known, however, about the potential effects of the variability associated with these forms on the acquisition of related epiphenomena, such as the anaphoric relations and binding constraints of complements that select subjunctive. The present investigation addresses this gap in the research by focusing on how HSs express and interpret subject co-referentiality and disjoint reference in desiderative constructions. Results from two experimental tasks (a Truth-Value judgment and a Sentence Completion task) revealed that participants’ Spanish proficiency was a significant predictor of their performance. In particular, more advanced HSs exhibited a higher likelihood of linking the presence of subjunctive to subject disjoint reference (a pattern observed among most Spanish controls) and a higher probability of using this form to express subject disjoint-reference in production. Furthermore, optionality in this domain was significantly linked to the degree to which HSs restructured the referential properties associated with subjunctive complements. Specifically, participants who exhibited lower rates of structural and morphological variability in connection to the expression of disjoint-reference also appeared to be more likely to assign this reading to the null subjects of subjunctive complements and reject the possibility of subject co-referentiality. These findings provide new evidence of how syntactic dependencies such as subject obviation and control are developed among heritage speakers of Spanish and explore the potential role of structural and morphological optionality in their (re)-configuration.

Anaphora resolution and age effects in Greek-Spanish bilingualism: Evidence from first-generation immigrants, heritage speakers, and L2 speakers

The present study compares anaphora resolution (AR) data from Greek and Spanish monolinguals and Greek-Spanish bilinguals who live in Chile to identify differences in resolving third-person null subjects (NSs) and overt pronominal subjects (OSPs) in ambiguous non-focused linguistic contexts. Overextension of the scope of OSPs in contexts where NSs are discursively expected has been consistently observed in different language contact situations, including pairs of null subject languages. According to the Interface Hypothesis, this is a compensatory strategy that occurs on account of bilingualism itself (inefficiency in syntax-pragmatic mappings). The study evaluates the Interface Hypothesis, focusing on the understudied combination of Greek and Spanish, by comparing three types of bilinguals: first-generation immigrants, heritage speakers, and L2 speakers, together with monolingual baseline groups. In addition, the study examines the age effects on speakers’ performance. Five groups of speakers (N = 115; age range 16–87; mean: 50.13, SD = 19.33) performed a self-paced auditory AR task. No overextension of the scope of OSPs was found in any of the bilingual groups, against the predictions stemming from the Interface Hypothesis. Significant age effects were found in the interpretation of NSs by both monolingual and bilingual speakers of Greek.