[Lingtyp] typological studies of "pro-drop"

[Martin Haspelmath]

See the APiCS chapter on the "expression of pronominal subjects" 
(http://apics-online.info/parameters/62.chapter.html), inspired by 
Matthew Dryer's corresponding WALS feature (http://wals.info/feature/101A).

I would also recommend Anna Siewierska's works, especially her 1999 
paper (in Folia Linguistica) and her 2004 book (Person).

But I think it's important to recognize that the notion of "pro-drop" is 
very confusing, and remains popular only because many linguists don't 
know much more than English and Spanish (and they feel that Spanish 
"drops" what would be a personal pronoun in English). In fact, however, 
the Spanish type is FAR more common in the world's languages than the 
Swedish type (where subject personal pronouns are obligatory, and there 
is no person-marking on the verb at all), as can be seen in Matthew 
Dryer's WALS chapter. The English/German type (with obligatory personal 
pronouns, plus person-marking on the verb) is extremely rare (as noted 
by Siewierska 1999).

(Note also that "person-drop" would be a better term, because not all 
pronouns can be "dropped", e.g. interrogatives and demonstratives.)

Martin

On 05.03.18 08:10, Maia Ponsonnet wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
>
> Related to Honors supervision, I am looking for typological works on 
> pro-drop.
>
> Anything on pro-drop in creole languages will be particularly relevant.
>
>
> With many thanks for your help, cheers,
>
> Maïa
>
>
> Dr Maïa Ponsonnet
> Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
> ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Fellow
>
>
> Social Sciences Building, Room 2.47
> Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education
> The University of Western Australia
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>
>
>
>
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-- 
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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D-07745 Jena
&
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