On absent, expletive, and non-referential subjects.

Publikation: Beitrag in Buch/Bericht/Konferenzband/GesetzeskommentarKapitel in einem SammelbandForschungPeer-reviewed

Abstract

What follows expounds empirical and theoretical reasons for a basic, but frequently neglected, differentiation of the subjects of impersonal constructions. An essential difference is the syntactic distinction between a semantically void subject argument on the one hand and an expletive item for an obligatory structural subject position on the other hand.
The primary source of evidence will be the passive and the middle construction of intransitive verbs in Germanic and Romance languages. The Germanic group comprises languages with verb-initial ("VO") or verb-final verb phrases ("OV"). Romance languages, on the other hand, are uniformly head initial ("VO") but they differ with respect to the null-subject property. In all, this cross-linguistic constellation is a good testing ground for theoretical assumptions concerning the syntactic management of subjects in "impersonal" constructions, given the following reference points:
In SVO languages, the obligatory preverbal subject position is the grammatical source of subject expletives. In the SOV and VSO clause structure, arguably, there is no obligatory VP-external subject position and therefore no room for expletive subjects. For structural reasons, SOV and VSO languages allow for genuinely subjectless clauses but the SVO clause structure does not.
As for expletives, they have to be distinguished from semantically void subject pronouns since the same pronoun may be found in either function. The subjects of intransitive middles, for instance, are semantically void arguments of the verb while the structural subject of an intransitive passive, as in French or in Scandinavian languages, is a non-argumental item in a structurally obligatory subject position. Semantically void subjects may be lexical or null, depending on the null-subject property of the given language. Expletive subjects cannot be null. In the linguistic reality, there is no such thing as an "empty expletive", contrary to widely shared assumptions in the literature.
Whenever analyses or descriptions of so-called impersonal constructions confuse the qualities mentioned in the title, the theoretical conclusions based on such data become inconclusive. In the linguistic reality, clauses may be genuinely subjectless or they may contain an expletive subject or a semantically void argumental subject, which, in a null subject language, is null but recoverable. What they never contain is a "null expletive subject". An "empty expletive" is – as shall be demonstrated – a grammatical concept without factual basis. Its motivation rests on an SVO-biased perspective on the clause structure of SOV and VSO.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
TitelSemantic and syntactic aspects of impersonality.
Redakteure/-innenPeter Herbeck, Bernhard Pöll, Anne Wolfsgruber
ErscheinungsortHamburg
Herausgeber (Verlag)Buske [= Helmut Buske Verlag]
Seiten11-46
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 2019

Publikationsreihe

NameZeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft Sonderband 26

Systematik der Wissenschaftszweige 2012

  • 602 Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften

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