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Article published In:
Languages in Contrast
Vol. 19:2 (2019) ► pp.310–333

Slavic and Romance pro-drop in contrast

Evidence from Czech and Spanish

ORCID logo | University of Osnabruck
The present paper investigates similarities and differences between Czech and Spanish regarding the (non-)expression of pronominal subjects (PS). The nature of this comparative study is qualitative, and its central question is whether Czech and Spanish use the same strategies for omission and expression of PS. Previous research describes both Czech and Spanish as consistent pro-drop languages, and at first glance their strategies for (non-) expression of PS are identical. However, in certain structures, Czech allows overt pragmatic as well as grammatical expletives, a feature which – in combination with several further structural properties – substantially distinguishes it from Spanish. The differences that may emerge when comparing two languages leads automatically to a discussion of the typology of pro-drop languages.
Keywords: pro-drop , pronominal subjects, Czech, Spanish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Czech vs. Spanish pro-drop
    • 2.1Rich verbal morphology and (referential) PS
    • 2.2No overt expletives (?)
      • 2.2.1Pragmatic use of pronouns in (Dominican) Spanish
      • 2.2.2Pragmatic use of to in Czech
      • 2.2.3Pragmatic use of ono in Czech
      • 2.2.4Pragmatic use of on, ona, etc. in Czech
    • 2.3Generic constructions
    • 2.4Additional cases of divergence
      • 2.4.1Echo yes/no questions
      • 2.4.2Auxiliary-drop in Czech
      • 2.4.3PS as a placeholder and ellipsis of the first position in Czech
  • 3.Discussion
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Literary texts
Published online: 24 January 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.17011.pes
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2024. Preverbal, postverbal, and null subjects in Spanish: Comparing multilingual speaker groups and methods. In Spanish as a second and third language [Romanistik, 42], ► pp. 147 ff. DOI logo

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