[Lingtyp] R: Partial pro-drop

[Elisa Roma]

Dear Yiming, Omri and all,

Modern Irish varieties could be a case in point that may be worth examining.

As a result of change, some persons of some tenses have inflectional person indexes (mainly 1st and 2nd singular, 1st plural), that cannot combine with independent subject pronouns, while other persons in the paradigm employ a default person form (historically the 3rd singular form) combined with a nominal or pronominal subject. While with inflected 1st and 2nd person forms overt subject pronouns are barred, with the default person forms a subject phrase, whether pronominal or nominal, is obligatory. Third person is basically non-pro-drop for all tenses since referential subjects must be overt, while expletives tend to be so (although different  dialects may behave differently). Southern dialects are more conservative and preserve a greater number of inflected person forms than the standard and the other varieties (you may glean an overview of inflectional paradigms of a southern dialect through this website  https://corkirish.wordpress.com/verb-conjugation/)

I refer you to

McCloskey, James & Kenneth Hale. On the syntax of person-number inflection in Modern Irish. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1(4) (1984): 487-533

(https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00417057)

Ó Siadhail, Mícheál, Modern Irish. Grammatical structure and dialectal variation. Cambridge, CUP 1989 (https://www.cambridge.org/core/search?filters%5BauthorTerms%5D=M%C3%ADche%C3%A1l%20%C3%B3siadhail <https://www.cambridge.org/core/search?filters%5BauthorTerms%5D=M%C3%ADche%C3%A1l%20%C3%B3siadhail&eventCode=SE-AU> &eventCode=SE-AU)

Hickey, Raymond. The Dialects of Irish. Study of a Changing Landscape. Mouton de Gruyter 2011

 

For the historical development in particular my old paper (I can share it)

Roma, Elisa. How Subject Pronouns spread in Irish. A diachronic study and synchronic account of the third person+ pronoun pattern. Ériu 51 (2000): 107-157.

 

All the Best,

Elisa

 

 

Elisa Roma

Associate professor of Linguistics

Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici

Università di Pavia

elisa.roma at unipv.it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Da: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> Per conto di Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp
Inviato: mercoledì 29 ottobre 2025 16.39
A: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Oggetto: [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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