so-called "pro-drop" languages

[Marcel Erdal]

In Old Turkic sentences lacking an explicit (lexical, pronominal,
morphological) subject, the context may enable subject tracking (= pro-drop)
or it may not. In this latter case there is a relevant 'empty position' - in
accordance with David Gil's parameter (d): The sentence is meant to hold for
any relevant subject (similar in content to 'one', German 'man' etc.). I
don't think this is the same as Gilbert Lazard's "enonces effectivement
'sans sujet'" either, as the matter takes place with all types of verbs.
Marcel Erdal

> Von: David Gil <gil at EVA.MPG.DE>
> Organisation: MPI EVA
> Antworten an: gil at eva.mpg.de
> Datum: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:32:37 +0700
> An: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Betreff: Re: so-called "pro-drop" languages
> 
> For me it is a question not of what is less or more interesting (a
> matter of personal taste) but of what needs to be distinguished from
> what (a matter of conceptual clarity).  Much of the preceding discussion
> seems to me to have conflated several parameters of variation which are
> at least partially independent from each other:
> 
> (a) morphological expression of "subject" participant:  is it
> impossible, optional, or obligatory?
> 
> (b) for languages in which the morphological expression of "subject"
> participant is either impossible or optional:  in those cases when it is
> absent, is there a relevant "empty position" in the morphological structure?
> 
> (c) lexical expression of "subject" participant:  is it impossible (I'm
> not sure whether there are any real cases of this), optional, or obligatory?
> 
> (d) for languages in which the lexical expression of "subject"
> participant is either impossible or optional: in those cases when it is
> absent, is there a relevant "empty position" in the syntactic structure?
> 
> Whereas (a) and (c) are superficially and readily observable properties
> of individual languages, (b) and (d) can only be examined through
> abstract and theory-dependent argumentation.
> 
> 
> G.Lazard wrote:
> 
>> La distinction entre langues "pro-drop" et "non pro-drop" n'a pas
>> grand interet: les enonces 'they come' et 'veni-unt' comportent l'un
>> et l'autre deux elements. Une distinction beaucoup plus importante
>> existe entre ces enonces à deux termes et les enonces effectivement
>> "sans sujet" des langues d'Asie orientale, ex. japonais atsui "j'ai
>> chaud / il fait chaud / c'est chaud", etc.
> 
> 
> --
> David Gil
> 
> [currently in Indonesia]
> 
> Department of Linguistics
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
> 
> Telephone: 49-341-3550321
> Fax: 49-341-3550119
> Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
> Webpage:  http://monolith.eva.mpg.de/~gil/