Table Of ContentAUP /Bennis AAA 14-10-2005 15:26 Pagina 1
In this study the syntactic properties of empty categories and dummy pro- H
nouns are investigated within the framework of Government-Binding theory. a
n
The assumption that clauses must have a subject is present in most, if not all, s
B
linguistic theories. In GB theory the requirement that clauses have a subject is
e
n
stipulated as a consequence of the base rules or the Extended Projection Prin-
n Hans Bennis
ciple. In this book it is claimed that no such stipulation is necessary. The pres- i
s
ence of a subject is exclusively determined by the theories of thematic roles G
and Case. a
p
This view is supported by the fact that the alleged dummy subjects Dutch, s Gaps and Dummies
a
i.e. erand het, show a variety of properties, which can only be explained if they n
d
are not analyzed as dummy subjects. Further confirmation is derived from the
D
fact that Dutch subjectless sentences are found in precisely those circum-
u
stances in which neither O-theory nor Case theory requires a subject to be m
m
present. A discussion of dummy subjects in other languages such as English,
i
Italian, French and Spanish corroborates this perspective. e
s
Hans Bennis is professor of linguistics at the University of Amsterdam and
director of the Meertens Institute (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences) in Amsterdam. The Meertens Institute concentrates on documentation
and research of Dutch popular culture and language variation. His research is
mainly directed towards the syntax of Dutch within the framework of genera-
tive grammar. In recent years, his attention has shifted in the direction of syn-
tactic microvariation within the Dutch language area. He is coordinator and
co-author of the Syntactic Atlas of the Dutch Dialects (sand), the first volume
of which has appeared with Amsterdam University Press in 2005.
The Amsterdam Academic Archive is an initiative of Amsterdam University
Press. The series consists of scholarly titles which were no longer available, but
which are still in demand in the Netherlands and abroad. Relevant sections of
3 a
these publications can also be found in the repository of Amsterdam Universi-
ty Press: www.aup.nl/repository.
isbn90 5356 859 x
™xHSTAPDy568590z
Amsterdam University Press 3 a Amsterdam Academic Archive
voorwerk Bennis 2 AAA 14-10-2005 15:03 Pagina i
gaps and dummies
voorwerk Bennis 2 AAA 14-10-2005 15:03 Pagina ii
The Amsterdam Academic Archive is an initiative of Amsterdam University Press. The
series consists of scholarly titles which were no longer available, but which
are still in demand in the Netherlands and abroad. Relevant sections of these
publications can also be found in the repository of Amsterdam University Press:
www.aup.nl/repository. At the back of this book there is a list
of all the AAA titles published in 2005.
voorwerk Bennis 2 AAA 14-10-2005 15:03 Pagina iii
Hans Bennis
Gaps and Dummies
3 a
Amsterdam Academic Archive
voorwerk Bennis 2 AAA 14-10-2005 15:03 Pagina iv
Gaps and Dummies was originally published as a PhD-dissertation in 1986 at the
Katholieke Hogeschool Tilburg. It later appeared in the Linguistic Models-series
from Foris Publications, Dordrecht (isbn90 6765 245 8).
Cover design: René Staelenberg, Amsterdam
isbn90 5356 859 x
nur616
© Amsterdam University Press • Amsterdam Academic Archive, 2005
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of both the copyright owner
and the author of the book.
voorwerk Bennis 2 AAA 14-10-2005 15:03 Pagina v
preface for the AAA-edition
Gaps and Dummies was originally published as a PhD-dissertation in 1986 (defense May
1986). In addition to the dissertation version, it has appeared as a book in the series Lin-
guistic Models, volume 9, with Foris Publications (second printing in 1987). Later, the
series Linguistic Models has been taken over by Mouton de Gruyter (Berlin, New York).
Although the book has appeared in various versions, the text is in all cases identical to
the original dissertation version, which was camera-ready produced on a Commodore-
64 computer and a daisy-wheel printer.
Gaps and Dummies has received a lot of attention nationally and internationally due to
the fact that it addressed a very central theme in generative linguistics, the nature of the
subject. The central questions in the book were directed towards the formal status of
the subject: is the presence of a subject a consequence of structural or thematic proper-
ties?
If syntactic structure itself determines the presence of a subject position in a clause,
it follows that all clauses have subject positions; given the fact that positions should be
detectable, the consequence is that sentences without thematic subjects must have
dummy subjects. Sentences without a thematic subject and without a lexical dummy
subject must have empty dummy subjects consequently. It thus leads to the postulation
of linguistic objects that have neither form nor interpretation. This view was formulat-
ed in the Extended Projection Principle, the dominant perspective in generative theory
within the Government-Binding framework in the nineteen-eighties, and is nowadays
still present in the minimalist framework of generative syntax, in more or less the same
way.
The other perspective is that the presence of a subject is determined by independent
linguistic principles. If the verb or construction requires an external argument lexically,
the projection of arguments into syntactic structure makes sure that a subject is pres-
ent. This subject might be lexically empty in the case of prodrop languages. Another
arguable instance of subjects being present is the case in which thematic noun phrases
that are not projected as subjects will be promoted to become subjects due to Case rea-
sons. This situation occurs in the case of passive, ergative and raising constructions. This
view leads to a position in which there are no lexical or empty dummy subjects as place
holders for an absent or demoted thematic subject. More generally, it follows that there
are no dummy pronouns. This was the view advocated in Gaps and Dummies. The dis-
cussion on these two different views has attracted a lot of attention.
Another reason for Gaps and Dummies to receive attention in the literature is the fact
that it contains a detailed discussion of the two potential dummy pronouns in Dutch:
the adverbial pronoun erand the neuter pronoun het. In order to show the correctness
of the approach in which dummy pronouns do not exist, it had to be demonstrated that
apparent dummy pronouns are referential pronouns instead. Chapter 2 ('Hetas a refer-
ential expression') and Chapter 3 ('The adverbial pronoun er') show in detail that a view
in which apparent dummy pronouns are taken to be referential has a number of inter-
esting consequences and is preferable to the dummy perspective.
v
voorwerk Bennis 2 AAA 14-10-2005 15:03 Pagina vi
These two chapters are still often referred to in the literature. Especially the argu-
ments to show that there are no dummy object pronouns have been generally adopted
in Dutch linguistics. The discussion about the extremely complex pronoun erin Chap-
ter 3 is still relevant for contempory work on Dutch syntax.
Given the fact that Gaps and Dummies is both theoretically and empirically relevant for
present-day linguistics, I welcome the possibility to include this book in the AAA-series
of Amsterdam University Press.
Hans Bennis
Meertens Instituut (knaw), Amsterdam
October 2005
vi
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Gaps and Parasitic Gaps 7
1.1 Introduction 7
1.2 Connectedness 8
1.2.1 Kayne's g-projection 8
1.2.2 Two modifications of Kayne's g-projection 11
1.2.3 Extraction from complement clauses 15
1.3 Complex cases of PPs 18
1.3.1 Van Riemsdijk's analysis of P-stranding 19
1.3.2 Adjacency and P-stranding 21
1.3.3 Extraction from complex PPs 25
1.3.4 Reanalysis in complex PPs 29
1.4 Parasitic gaps 39
1.5 Parasitic gaps in Dutch 44
1.5. 1 The distribution of parasitic gaps 44
1.5.2 Parasitic gaps without real gaps 54
1.6 Chains and features 71
1.7 An alternative approach to parasitic gaps in Dutch 79
1.7.1 The analysis of Huybregts and Van Riemsdijk "
1.7.2 An argument against our analysis 82
1.7.3 Parallelism between across-the-board and 83
parasitic-gap constructions
Notes 88
2. Het as a referential expression 93
2.1 Introduction 93
2.2 Weather-het 95
2.3 Referential properties of the dummy pronoun het 98
2.4 Het and sentential complements "3
2.4.1 Het in object position "3
Table of Contents
2.4.2 Het in subject position
10'
2.5 Het-Raising 110
2.6 Bisentential verbs 116
2.7 Het in Small-Clause constructions 12'
2.8 Het and ergative verbs 131
2.9 Psychological verbs 134
2. Hl Inversion phenomena 146
2.10. 1 Previous proposals 147
2.10.2 Inversion and the Extended Projection Principle 151
2.10·3 Het and Inversion 160
2.11 Summary 163
Notes 165
3. The adverbial pronoun er 171
3.1 Introduction 171
3.2 The distribution of er 174
3.2.1 EXistential/expletive er 174
3.2.2 Prepositional er 176
3.2.3 Quantitative er 177
3.2.4 Locative er 177
3.2.5 Co-occurrence of syntactic functions of er 178
3.2.6 An analysis of co-occurrence 181
3.3 Categorial status and derivation 188
3.3.1 The categorial status of prepositional R-pronouns 188
3.3·2 Movement of prepositional R-pronouns 195
3.3·3 The syntax of locative er 197
3.3·4 Quantitative er as a non-thematic argument 198
3.4 R-movement and the double-R-constraint 205
3.4.1 Van Riemsdijk's double-R-constraint 206
3.4.2 R-movement and adjunction 207
3.5 Expletive er: a dummy pronoun? 211
3.5.1 The distribution of expletive er 212
3.5·2 Syntactic analyses of the construction with 217
expletive er
3.5.3 Pragmatic motivation of er-insertion 221
3.5.3.1 Pragmatic principles governing the application 222
of adjunction
3.5.3.2 Pragmatic principles and expletive er 224
Table of Contents
3.6 Er and wh-movement 228
3.6.1 Dat-l phenomena 229
3.6.1.1 Previous accounts 229
3.6.1 .2 Subject extraction 'nd th, G,p Condition 239
3.6.1.3 Subject extraction 'nd the EPC 243
3.6.2 Subject extraction in main clauses 247
3.7 Conclusion 248
Notes 250
4. Some related topics 259
4.1 Introduction 259
4.2 Adjunction and Connection 260
4.3 The external argument and the structure of 267
Modern English
4.4 The structure of Old English and its development 275
into Modern English
4.4. 1 The structure of Old English 276
4.4.1.1 P-stranding 276
4.4. 1.2 That-! configurations 281
4.4.1.3 Impersonal constructions 282
4.4.2 Development into Modern English: 291
the INfL parameter
4.5 Some remarks on the structure of the 295
Romance languages
4.5.1 The postverbal subject in Spanish 296
4.5.2 Stylistic Inversion in French 297
4.5_3 The structure of Italian and the syntax of ne 301
4.6 The pronoun es in German 308
4.7 It as a referential expression 312
4.8 Concluding remarks 317
Notes 319
References 329
