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Null arguments in Old Norwegian: interaction between pronouns and the functional categories of the clause

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Kinn, K 

Abstract

In this paper I propose a new analysis of null arguments in Old Norwegian. I argue that the option of null realization in Old Norwegian correlates with a distinction between φ P and DP pronouns in the sense of Déchaine & Wiltschko (2002), and that this distribution can be captured by a version of pronoun deletion (Roberts 2010b). On a more general, theoretical level, I argue that both the structure of pronouns and that of the functional domains C, T and v influence the null argument properties of a language. Thus, null arguments, but also blocking of null arguments in non-null-argument languages like Modern Norwegian and English, may be derived in different ways.

Description

Keywords

Norwegian, syntax, syntactic variation, historical linguistics, null arguments

Journal Title

Linguistic Variation

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2211-6834
2211-6842

Volume Title

17

Publisher

John Benjamins Publishing Company
Sponsorship
This paper is partially funded by the European Research Council Advanced Grant No. 269752 “Rethinking Comparative Syntax.”