[Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop

Thu Oct 30 09:29:17 UTC 2025

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). 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. Universals, explanations and pragmatics. In: Michel Kefer and Johan van der Auwera, eds. Grammar and meaning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 17-26

Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne af Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp
Sendt: 30. oktober 2025 09:24
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, 2025 at 4:59 AM Mira Ariel <mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il<mailto:mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il>> wrote:
Hi Omri,

  1.  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. 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. 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

  1.  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?

  1.  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<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> On Behalf Of Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2025 10:04 PM
To: Omri Amiraz <Omri.Amiraz at mail.huji.ac.il<mailto:Omri.Amiraz at mail.huji.ac.il>>; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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), didn’t break down results by person. Sorry.

Best — Juergen

Bohnemeyer, J. & T. J. Tilbe. (2021). Argument realization and discourse status in Yucatec, a purely head-marking language. Amerindia 43: 249-289.

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2025 at 11:38
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto: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
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