[Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop
Cat Butz
Cat.Butz at hhu.de
Tue Nov 4 11:34:32 UTC 2025
Thank you, Volker, for pointing that out.
To talk more about Japanese pronouns (can't speak on any other languages
of the area in this regard): In polite contexts, second person pronouns
aren't simply dropped, but typically replaced by the addressee's name.
I'm also going to throw in at this point that many of the most rude
second person pronouns in contemporary Japanese famously have evolved
from those that used to be the most respectful. Spanish "usted" also
comes to my mind in this context, so this "negative drift" doesn't seem
to be uncommon.
I'm going to tag out of this discussion now, but it's been very
interesting. Second person pronoun sociolinguistics are definitely
pretty complex.
Warmest,
---
Cat Butz (she)
HHU Düsseldorf
General Linguistics
Am 31/10/2025 21:48, schrieb Hartmut Haberland:
> Grev Corbett and I had an off-list thread of discussion which I attach
> here (with his consent).
>
> The disrespect thread of argument is intriguing, but there are a few
> remaining questions. I wonder how formality/informality on the one
> hand and politeness/rudeness on the other are related (I wish we could
> get rid of the terminological misfoster “(im)politeness”).
> Rudeness seems to imply or at least to prefer informality while
> formality does not necessarily imply politeness or respect. But then
> you have cases like German _gefälligst_ lit. ‘pleasingly’ which
> started as a politeness marker (“s’il vous plait”) and is now
> clearly a rudeness marker (as in the equivalent of “could you take
> your bloody feet off the seat”, said by a train conductor). The
> Danish [+V] address form _De_ has been said now only to be used
> towards the former (now abdicated) Queen (but not her son, now the
> King), much older people than oneself, very expensive shops and
> especially letters of complaint. The latter means that a politeness
> marker can become a distance marker and in the next step a rudeness
> marker.
>
> Hartmut
>
> Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne af
> Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp
> Sendt: 31. oktober 2025 16:45
> Til: volker.gast at uni-jena.de; Sebastian Nordhoff
> <sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de>; Cat Butz <Cat.Butz at hhu.de>
> Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop
>
> Dear all — (i) I love this thread! (ii) My hypothesis regarding the
> confrontational effect is that it might be first and foremost
> register-based. I think these sentences with elided addressee pronouns
> are super colloquial. Colloquial can mean blunt (due to the nexus b/w
> formality and respect), and thus confrontational, but can also index
> intimacy, as in Volker’s examples.
>
> (iii) Also worth considering: In Japanese, Korean, and many languages
> of the SEA area, SAP pronouns are (as is well-known) conventionally
> avoided for politeness reasons. So we seem to get the inverse
> distribution of what we’ve been talking about in German. This,
> however, seems to be a function of the very act of address creating a
> greater danger of face loss (for both interlocutors) in these cultures
> than it does in German culture.
>
> (iv) Sebastian’s examples made me think of a superficially similar
> construction in English, a type of tag question in which an addressee
> pronoun is omitted from the main clause but is included in the tag.
> I’m not quite sure whether the main verb should be finite, as in
> (1), or non-finite, as in (2) - I think both forms are possible?
>
> * Went to the library, did you?
>
> * Go to the library, did you?
>
> Tags are of course also often used confrontationally, although in
> (1)-(2), the effect may be merely a mild sense of skepticism on the
> part of the speaker.
>
> Best — Juergen
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu
> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/ [1]
>
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID
> 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
>
> --
>
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Volker Gast via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Date: Friday, October 31, 2025 at 10:28
> To: Sebastian Nordhoff <sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de>, Cat Butz
> <Cat.Butz at hhu.de>
> Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop
>
> Hi both,
>
> There's some literature on "Vorfeldellipse", "pronoun zapping" etc. in
> German, e.g. by N. Fries, P. Auer and A. Wöllstein. I don't think
> that they go into the pragmatic or sociolinguistic details though.
>
> The "disrespect hypothesis" can't be quite right, as it's quite common
> and even conventional to say things like
>
> "Bist'n Schatz" 'You're a treasure'
>
> or
>
> "Bist doch mein bester Freund." 'You're my best friend after all.'
>
> I rather suspect a frequency effect. That could be material for an
> interesting corpus study. (P. Auer notices that pronoun ellipsis seems
> to be ruled out with plural pronouns of the 1st or 2nd person.)
>
> Best,
> Volker
>
> Sent from MailDroid [2]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cat Butz via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> To: Sebastian Nordhoff <sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de>
> Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Sent: Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:38
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop
>
> I think this is getting a lot closer to the core now. Dropping a 2nd
> person pronoun probably carries disrespectful semantics, which is why
> it's associated with confrontation. One more example that came to my
> mind is "Kannst gehen.", which doesn't necessarily express
> confrontation, but certainly not respect either. Same for dropping the
> honorific "Sie" (even though this is morphosyntactically 3rd person,
> it
> just keeps getting more interesting), with some kind of laconic army
> general saying something like "Können abtreten." to dismiss a
> low-ranking soldier.
>
> ---
> Cat Butz (she)
> HHU Düsseldorf
> General Linguistics
>
> Am 30/10/2025 17:06 [3], schrieb Sebastian Nordhoff via Lingtyp:
>> On 10/30/25 15:30 [4], Cat Butz via Lingtyp wrote:
>>> I was just doing some German introspection and first had similar
>>> thoughts about pro-drop only being acceptable in the 1st and 3rd
>>> person, but then remembered a scene from like 15 [5] years ago
> where we
>>> were once harassed by two young dudes and someone in our group
>>> unfortunately let herself get dragged into an argument with them.
> (CW:
>>> antisemitism) At one point one of them then attempted to insult her
>>> with the phrase "Bist ne Jüdin, Mann".
>>>
>>> Also, for some reason, 2nd person pro-drop in German seems to be
>>> acceptable in presumptive contexts and when followed by an
>>> interrogative interjection (?): "Hast wohl Angst, hä?", "Wart
> gestern
>>> anscheinend zu lange weg, was?" etc. etc.
>>
>> Dear all,
>> I think there is some confrontational subtext if the second person
>> pronoun is dropped, which I cannot fully pin down. It also works
>> without presumption and interrogation
>>
>> (1) Kommst zu spät und willst dann noch Kaffee!
>> come.2PL too late and want.2SG then still coffee
>> 'You arrive late and then you (even dare) want coffee!'
>>
>> This could also explain the encounter you mention above. Funnily
>> enough, the second clause has to be present, without it the
> utterance
>> makes no sense.
>>
>> Best
>> Sebastian
>>
>>>
>>> Pretty interesting actually. Let me know if you need glossing for
> the
>>> examples.
>>>
>>> Warmest,
>>> ---
>>> Cat Butz (she)
>>> HHU Düsseldorf
>>> General Linguistics
>>>
>>>
>>> Am 30/10/2025 10:29 [6], schrieb Hartmut Haberland via Lingtyp:
>>>> There is a little studied, but admittedly marginal, phenomenon in
>>>> German which could be considered pro-drop (but see a few remarks
> in
>>>> Haberland and Heltoft 1992 [7]). Consider this question–answer
> pair:
>>>>
>>>> Was macht Claudia? Ø isst eine Pizza.
>>>>
>>>> (literally: What is Claudia doing? Ø is eating a pizza.)
>>>>
>>>> Now for me, this works perfectly also without a first person
> subject:
>>>>
>>>> Was machst du? Ø esse eine Pizza.
>>>>
>>>> but not without a second person subject:
>>>>
>>>> Was mache ich? Ø isst eine Pizza.
>>>>
>>>> Now one could say that this is because of the syncretism between
> 2nd
>>>> and 3rd person present indicative singular forms of verbs with
> stems
>>>> ending in [s], [z] or [ʃ] (as _essen_ (as well as _mixen_),
> _lessen_
>>>> and _mischen_), which have _-t_ rather than _-st_ in the 2nd
> person
>>>> singular (for phonetic reasons).
>>>>
>>>> But even for verbs with stems not ending in sibilants [s], [z] or
>>>> [ʃ], an omitted 2nd person subject sounds at least doubtful to
> me:
>>>>
>>>> Wo bin ich? */?Ø bist in der Küche.
>>>>
>>>> (Where am I? Are in the kitchen.)
>>>>
>>>> Here there is no syncretism in the verb that could block the
> omission
>>>> of the subject.
>>>>
>>>> Even in the plural:
>>>>
>>>> Wo sind wir? */? Ø seid in der Küche.
>>>>
>>>> A possible explanation is that the reason could be the awkwardness
> of
>>>> the question in the first place: people normally know where they
> are,
>>>> what they are eating etc. and do not normally have to ask somebody
>>>> else to tell them. So here the explanation would be pragmatics,
> not
>>>> phonetics.
>>>>
>>>> Hartmut Haberland
>>>>
>>>> Hartmut Haberland and Lars Heltoft 1992 [7]. Universals,
> explanations and
>>>> pragmatics. In: Michel Kefer and Johan van der Auwera, eds.
> _Grammar
>>>> and meaning._ Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 17-26 [8]
>>>>
>>>> Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne
> af
>>>> Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp
>>>> Sendt: 30 [4]. oktober 2025 09 [9]:24 [10]
>>>> Til: Mira Ariel <mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il>; Juergen Bohnemeyer
>>>> <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
>>>> Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>> Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop
>>>>
>>>> Dear Juergen and Mira,
>>>>
>>>> It is certainly true that SAPs tend to be more accessible.
> However,
>>>> we’re approaching this from a variationist perspective, focusing
> on
>>>> speakers’ choices in contexts where the referent is already
>>>> accessible, rather than across all clause types. In that sense,
> the
>>>> alternation we’re interested in is essentially between
> independent
>>>> pronouns and zero (possibly in combination with verbal subject
>>>> marking).
>>>>
>>>> I’m not sure that information structure alone can account for
> the
>>>> obligatory use of subject pronouns in these cases. For instance,
> in
>>>> Hebrew past tense clauses, the independent pronoun does not add
> any
>>>> information beyond what is already encoded by verbal agreement. So
> I
>>>> don’t really understand why it is used, except in cases of focus
> or
>>>> contrast, as Juergen mentioned.
>>>>
>>>> I also agree that ambiguity avoidance might not be the main
> factor,
>>>> though it may play a role in particular contexts and perhaps
> motivate
>>>> broader developments.
>>>>
>>>> Many thanks again for the references!
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Omri
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Oct 30 [4], 2025 [11] at 4:59 [12] AM Mira Ariel
> <mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Omri,
>>>>>
>>>>> * I agree with Juergen. Since SAPs tend to be more accessible
>>>>> their coding is shorter (High accessibility > shorter referential
>>>>> forms). This is why they are more often either 0 marked or else
>>>>> their pronouns are cliticized, sometimes leading to the rise of
>>>>> agreement markers for 1st/2nd persons only on the verb. This
>>>>> explains the findings for Hebrew, I suggested. See:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1998 [13]. Three grammaticalization paths for the development of
> person
>>>>> verbal agreement in Hebrew. In: Discourse and cognition: Bridging
>>>>> the gap, edited by J.-P. Koenig. CSLI Publications
>>>>>
>>>>> 2000 [14]. The development of person agreement markers: From
> pronouns to
>>>>> higher accessibility markers. In: Usage-based models of language,
>>>>> edited by M. Barlow and S. Kemmer
>>>>>
>>>>> * In my experience, avoiding ambiguity is not a very strong
>>>>> motivation for language change, because context does miracles.
> Maybe
>>>>> not in the case of I versus you versus 3rd person?
>>>>>
>>>>> * There is no reason to think that a single factor explains all
>>>>> 0/pronoun alternations in all languages.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>>
>>>>> Mira (Ariel)
>>>>>
>>>>> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> On
> Behalf
>>>>> Of Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, October 29 [6], 2025 10 [15]:04 [16] PM
>>>>> To: Omri Amiraz <Omri.Amiraz at mail.huji.ac.il>;
>>>>> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear Omri et al. — I might look at this from a slightly
> different
>>>>> perspective. Suppose you change the question as follows:
>>>>>
>>>>> ‘Among indexes in pro-drop languages (i.e., languages in which
>>>>> co-nominals are syntactically optional), indexes of which person
> are
>>>>> more/less frequently accompanied by a co-nominal?’
>>>>>
>>>>> If you put it like that, it seems rather obvious to me that the
>>>>> answer is that SAP indexes are less frequently accompanied by
>>>>> co-nominals. Why? Because SAPs are inherently maximally
> accessible,
>>>>> whereas non-SAPs may or may not be accessible - a significant
>>>>> percentage of them is even indefinite.
>>>>>
>>>>> Plus, in many languages (or so it seems to me), there aren’t
> even
>>>>> great choices for nominals to accompany SAP indexes. One might
> use
>>>>> independent pronouns, but only in contexts in which this makes
>>>>> sense, such as for contrastive topics and under focus.
>>>>>
>>>>> I can’t think of a good reference for this off the top of my
> head.
>>>>> Not too many authors have looked at argument realization in
> strictly
>>>>> head-marking languages, and those that have, like Bohnemeyer &
> Tilbe
>>>>> (2021 [17]), didn’t break down results by person. Sorry.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best — Juergen
>>>>>
>>>>> Bohnemeyer, J. & T. J. Tilbe. (2021 [17]). Argument realization
> and
>>>>> discourse status in Yucatec, a purely head-marking language.
>>>>> _Amerindia_ 43 [18]: 249-289 [19].
>>>>>
>>>>> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
>>>>> Professor, Department of Linguistics
>>>>> University at Buffalo
>>>>>
>>>>> Office: 642 [20] Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
>>>>> Mailing address: 609 [21] Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 [22]
>>>>> Phone: (716) 645 0127 [23]
>>>>> Fax: (716) 645 3825 [24]
>>>>> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu
>>>>> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/ [1]
>>>>>
>>>>> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4 [25]:30 [4]pm in 642 [20] Baldy or via
> Zoom (Meeting ID
>>>>> 585 520 2411 [26]; Passcode Hoorheh)
>>>>>
>>>>> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
>>>>> (Leonard Cohen)
>>>>>
>>>>> -- From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on
>>>>> behalf
>>>>> of Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>>>> Date: Wednesday, October 29 [6], 2025 [11] at 11 [27]:38 [28]
>>>>> To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>>> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>>>> Subject: [Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear colleagues,
>>>>>
>>>>> We are conducting a study on the inverse correlation between the
>>>>> frequency of pro-drop (omission of the subject argument) and
>>>>> syncretism in verbal subject-marking paradigms.
>>>>>
>>>>> We are particularly interested in partial pro-drop languages,
> where
>>>>> subject omission is restricted to certain persons or other
>>>>> grammatical conditions. For example, in Hebrew, pro-drop is
> fairly
>>>>> common in the past tense for first and second person, but
> relatively
>>>>> rare for third person. This is puzzling, since the past-tense
>>>>> paradigm in Hebrew shows no syncretism, so it is unclear why the
>>>>> third-person pronoun cannot generally be omitted as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> We would greatly appreciate your input on the following points:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. Are you aware of other languages that exhibit partial
> pro-drop?
>>>>> We are currently aware of Hebrew, Finnish, Yiddish, Brazilian
>>>>> Portuguese, and Russian. This might point to an areal phenomenon,
> so
>>>>> examples from other areas would be especially valuable.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2. In the languages you are familiar with, does third person
> indeed
>>>>> tend to be the least likely to allow pro-drop?
>>>>> If so, are you aware of any proposed explanations for this
>>>>> asymmetry?
>>>>>
>>>>> Many thanks in advance for your insights,
>>>>> Yiming and Omri
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Links:
>>>> ------
>>>> [1] http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
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