Universal 1235: argumentless passives and unaccusatives > expletive of displaced NPs > expletives of displaced CPs (S´) > weather predicates > referential NPs
- Original
- Hierarchy of expletives:
argumentless passives and unaccusatives > expletive of displaced NPs > expletives of displaced CPs (S´) > weather predicates > referential NPs.If a language allows null expletives on a certain point in the hierarchy, it will also allow null expletives on all the points higher up on the hierarchy.
- Standardized
- IF there are null expletives on a certain point in the hierarchy, THEN there will also be null expletives on all the points higher up on the hierarchy.
Hierarchy of expletives:
argumentless passives and unaccusatives > expletive of displaced NPs > expletives of displaced CPs (S´) > weather predicates > referential NPs. - Keywords
- expletive, hierarchy
- Domain
- syntax
- Type
- implicational hierarchy
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- absolute
- Basis
- English, Yiddish, Dutch, German (all W. Germanic, IE), Irish (Celtic, IE), Italian, French (both Italic, IE), Malagasy (Barito, Western Malayo-Polynesian)
- Source
- Travis 1984: 218
- Counterexamples
EXPLETIVEs are grammatical elements having no semantic content and occurring in positions to which no thematic role is assigned.For example, “there” in (i) and “it” (ii) are expletives:(i) There is a man in the room.(ii) It seems that John is ill.