[Lingtyp] typological studies of pro-drop

[Dryer, Matthew]

Anders rightfully complains that the type of language in my WALS chapter in which subject pronouns are not obligatory but where pronominal subjects are frequently expressed  collapses a number of distinct subtypes, for example in failing to distinguish what he has described as consistent null subject languages from partial null subject languages. But there are two unfortunate realities here. One is that some distinctions cannot be easily made on the basis of grammatical descriptions; this is an inherent shortcoming of typological studies like mine based on large numbers of languages. The second reality is that more fine-grained typologies tend to be less reliable: the more types one has, the greater the likelihood that individual languages will be misclassified.

There is one criticism Anders makes in the article that he cites where I think he has things backwards. He argues that in some languages that I classified as languages where it is common for pronominal subjects to be expressed entirely by verb morphology, examination of descriptions of those languages show that most if not all the example sentences with pronominal subjects have overt subject pronouns. Unfortunately, I have found that example sentences in grammars are too often unreliable in this respect, that in many grammars where most if not all examples of clauses with pronominal subjects have overt subjects, examination of texts shows that it is in fact very common for clauses with pronominal subjects to lack overt pronouns.

One apparent source of this problem is that where sentences cited in grammars are elicited, there is a tendency for consultants to include pronouns if the intermediary language is a language like English where the pronouns are there in the sentences provided in the intermediary language. Most field workers are aware of the fact that elicited sentences often reflect properties of the intermediary language; this is precisely the danger of overusing elicited data. Similarly, I believe that there is an unconscious tendency for grammars written by native speakers to include subject pronouns when they are constructing example sentences in isolation. In languages where it is common to use subject pronouns but also common not to use them, they are more likely not to be used in continuous speech.

What this means is that it is more likely that I misclassified languages as ones in which subject pronouns are more or less obligatory where my only source of data was sentences in the grammar and where I did not have access to texts, but where access to texts would have shown that it is actually common for subject pronouns to not be used.

Matthew

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Anders Holmberg <anders.holmberg at newcastle.ac.uk<mailto:anders.holmberg at newcastle.ac.uk>>
Date: Monday, March 5, 2018 at 4:58 AM
To: Maia Ponsonnet <maia.ponsonnet at uwa.edu.au<mailto:maia.ponsonnet at uwa.edu.au>>, "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>" <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] typological studies of pro-drop


Hello Maia,

You may want to look at my discussion of Dryer's pro-drop data in WALS. in

Holmberg, A. 2017. Linguistic Typology. In I. Roberts (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar. OUP. Also on Lingbuzz, ling.auf.net/lingbuzz

Valuable though they are, Dryer's data should be used with caution. The problem is, as Martin indicates, that there are different types of pro-drop, and it isn't always easy to tell from a superficial look what type it is.

 An old investigation, based on data from 100 or so languages, is

Gilligan, Gary. 1987. A cross-linguistic approach to the pro-drop parameter. PhD dissertation, University of Southern California.

This was long before we were aware of the variety of pro-drop grammars.

   Have you seen this work on creole languages?

Nicolis, M. 2008. The null subject parameter and correlating properties: the case of creole languages. In Biberauer, T. (ed.) The limits of syntactic variation, 271-94. John Benjamins.


Anders


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