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Universal 1616: subject pro-drop ⇔ inflectional paradigms of verbs are morphologically uniform

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1616: subject pro-drop ⇔ inflectional paradigms of verbs are morphologically uniform

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.
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
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    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.

    1. May 2020

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