Pro-drop and ‘dummy’ subjects

A further difficulty for our subject+ predicate definition is the fact that many languages allow sentences not to have a specified subject. This phenomenon is known as pro-drop, and is particularly common in the Romance languages:

It might be argued that the ‘subject’ in these examples is understood, and can in fact be deduced from the personal verb ending.

In non-pro-drop languages, some specified subjects have no obvious referent. What, precisely, is raining in it is raining, for example, and what does ‘it’ refer to in it is clear that we need a new plan? Likewise there in There is a lot of confusion has no referent and serves only to satisfy a requirement that English verbs have a specified subject. Subjects like these, which have a purely grammatical role, are generally known as dummy subjects.

Using a term borrowed from chemistry, syntacticians sometimes refer to the valency of a predicator, meaning the number of arguments associated with the predicate that it realizes. Thus a one-place predicate has a single argument (e.g. the verb exist in (1) above), a two-place predicate (e.g. Sentence 2) has two and a three-place predicate (e.g. Sentence 3) has three.

These arguments are said to be expressed by complements in the sentence, but note that terminology here is inconsistent, with some syntacticians viewing all constituents expressing a grammatical argument as complements, while others exclude subjects from this definition.

In the above examples, the predicator is a finite verb (i.e. one marked for tense), but prepositions, adjectives or nouns may also realize one or two-place predicates. The predicators in the following examples are on, proud and friend respectively.

A requirement of English is that where the predicator is not a finite verb, the sentence requires the appropriate form of the verb to be for it to be grammatical: to be in this context is known as a copula, or linking verb. But not all languages have a copula requirement, as the following examples from Russian, which has neither articles nor a verb to be in the present tense, demonstrate:

1 on inzhenjer (lit. he engineer) ‘He is an engineer.’

2 ona krasiva (lit. she beautiful) ‘She is beautiful.’

3 ja na zavodje (lit. I on factory) ‘I’m at the factory.’

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم صناعة الشبابيك يشرع بإدامة شباكين قديمين لمرقد الإمامين العسكريين (عليهما السلام)

فرقة العباس (عليه السلام) تختتم خدماتها المقدمة للزائرين في سامراء

موكب العتبتين المقدستين يحيي ذكرى استشهاد الإمام الهادي (عليه السلام) في سامراء

العتبة العسكرية المقدسة تكرّم وفد العتبة العباسية المقدسة لمشاركته في تقديم الخدمات للزائرين

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

كنز غذائي على طبقك.. ماذا تفعل السبانخ بجسمك؟

ما لا يتوقعه أحد.. "سر غذائي" في الجبن الدسم

لتحسين الهضم والنوم.. هذا أفضل وقت لتناول العشاء

10 طرق بسيطة وغير مألوفة لحرق المزيد من السعرات يوميا

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

سابقة بعالم الطيران.. طائرة تقرر الهبوط بنفسها بعد ظرف طارئ

"الإنفلونزا الخارقة" تكتسح دول العالم.. وتثير قلقا كبيرا

مرحلة ما قبل الأعراض.. دواء جديد يستهدف "شرارة" الزهايمر

إزالة ثاني أكسيد الكربون من الغلاف الجوي.. ما دور المحيطات والبحار؟

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Zero-anaphora (“pro-drop”)

Annotated Phrase Structure trees

Word-level (lexical) categories

Syntax and speech

Word Order- Classifiers and phrasal dependents in DP

Word order- Suffixal Pl and Art

Syntax Word order and restrictive vs. nonrestrictive modification

Syntax

Language Mixture—Grammar

Change in grammar and pronunciation

Word order

Grammaticalization.