On the null-subject phenomenon

Abstract

This chapter offers an up-to-date discussion of the multiple issues raised by the null-subject phenomenon and the theoretical analyses put forth within Generative Grammar, situating the volume’s chapters within current scholarship. Starting from Rizzi’s (1986a) original formulation of the null-subject phenomenon in terms of the pro-drop parameter and the identification of two types of pro-drop languages (consistent and radical), this chapter demonstrates that the notion of a pro-drop parameter with an associated cluster of properties is still a useful tool to capture the empirical and theoretical properties of null-subject languages. The chapter considers the state-of-the-art on (i) the cluster properties correlated with pro-drop, focusing on the mutual correlation between the null-subject character of a language and the absence of expletives, (ii) the types of null categories possibly involved in null-subject phenomena and their identification mechanisms, and (iii) the typology of null-subject languages, focusing on partial null-subject languages.