[Lingtyp] Partial pro-drop

Thu Oct 30 16:06:56 UTC 2025

On 10/30/25 15:30, 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 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, 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). 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>
>> 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. 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
>>>
>>> * 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, 2025 10:04 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), 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
>>>
>>> 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 Omri Amiraz via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>> Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2025 at 11:38
>>> 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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