Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Professor Anders Holmberg
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
Some null-subject languages cannot drop the subject pronoun in the second conjunct in sentences which translate as (i), where the pronoun is coreferent with John. (i) They say that John doesn’t speak French, but he does. Among the null-subject languages which do not allow a null subject in this context are Chinese (various dialects), Finnish and European Portuguese. Among the languages that allow it are Japanese, Persian, and Spanish. An explanation is proposed of this variation, based on the following correlation: The languages which do not allow a null subject in (i) standardly reply to yes/no questions by repeating the finite verb of the question. The languages which allow a null subject in (1) standardly reply by using a special affirmation particle ‘yes’. The connection between these two properties is that both involve polarity focus. The proposal is that a null subject in the second conjunct in (i) is prohibited in the former class because of a competition of derivations involving ellipsis. This hypothesis is based on the theory of polarity focus in Finnish articulated in Holmberg (2001).
Author(s): Holmberg A
Editor(s): Bateman, L., Ussery, C.
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 35)
Year of Conference: 2005
Number of Volumes: 2
Publisher: BookSurge
