Universität zu Köln

Torregrossa, Jacopo, Andreou, Maria and Bongartz, Christiane M. (2020). Variation in the use and interpretation of null subjects: A view from Greek and Italian. Glossa, 5 (1). LONDON: UBIQUITY PRESS LTD. ISSN 2397-1835

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

We aim to understand whether Greek and Italian, two null subject languages, differ in the use and interpretation of null subjects, based on evidence from both a production and a comprehension experiment. The results of the two experiments show that the two languages differ in the extent to which they comply with the Position of Antecedent Strategy as formulated by Carminati (2002). In order to account for this difference, we introduce a principle which defines prominence of sentence constituents in terms of hierarchical height, elaborating on a recent proposal by Rizzi (2018). Then we show that the prominence of subject and object constituents in Greek and Italian reflects word-order differences between the two languages (Roussou & Tsimpli 2006). In more general terms, this paper argues in favour of a multi-factorial approach to reference interpretation, in that syntactic factors interact with discourse factors, leading to a gradient variety of reference possibilities.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Torregrossa, Jacopo UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Andreou, Maria UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Bongartz, Christiane M. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-318905
DOI:	10.5334/gjgl.1011
Journal or Publication Title:	Glossa
Volume:	5
Number:	1
Date:	2020
Publisher:	UBIQUITY PRESS LTD
Place of Publication:	LONDON
ISSN:	2397-1835
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language TOPICS; PRO Multiple languages Linguistics; Language & Linguistics Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/31890