Universal #1620

Legacy number: 1620

 Number  1616
 Original  The Null Subject Parameter:
Null subjects are permitted in all and only languages with morphologically uniform inflectional paradigms.
 Standardized  IF null subjects is permissible (aka subject pro-drop), THEN the inflectional paradigms of verbs are morphologically uniform, and vice versa.
 Formula  subject pro-drop ⇔ inflectional paradigms of verbs are morphologically uniform
 Keywords  subject pro-drop, verb, paradigm
 Domain  inflection, syntax
 Type  mutual implication
 Status  achronic
 Quality  absolute
 Basis  Japanese (Japanese-Ryukyuan), Chinese (Sino-Tibetan), Irish (Celtic, Indo-European), Romance, Germanic, and Semitic languages
 Source  Jaeggli & Safir 1989: 29-31

← Back to Universals Archive

Discussion
Notes
An inflectional paradigm P in a language L is MORPHOLOGICALLLY UNIFORM if P has either only underived inflectional forms or only derived inflectional forms.E.g.,Latin verb infl is uniform: all person-numbers have some suffix.Chinese is also uniform: no infl exponents for any person-number.English verb infl is NOT uniform: 3rd Sg has -s, rest has nothing.Plank (2003, EUROTYP NP volume) considers this claim too liberal: non-inflected verbs may license the dropping of pronouns of 3rd person, but not normally of 1st and 2nd.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
An inflectional paradigm P in a language L is MORPHOLOGICALLLY UNIFORM if P has either only underived inflectional forms or only derived inflectional forms.

E.g.,
Latin verb infl is uniform: all person-numbers have some suffix.
Chinese is also uniform: no infl exponents for any person-number.
English verb infl is NOT uniform: 3rd Sg has -s, rest has nothing.

Plank 2003 (EUROTYP NP volume) considers this claim too liberal: non-inflected verbs may license the dropping of pronouns of 3rd person, but not normally of 1st and 2nd.