| Popis: |
It is usually assumed that a difference between pro-drop and non-pro-drop languages is the presence of overt expletives in the latter group, but not in the former (cf. Rizzi 1982, Rizzi 1986, Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou1998). Compared with this two-way classification, partial pro-drop languages, i.e. languages in which the distribution of pro is more restricted, are intriguing case studies. Unlike in English, for example, the satisfaction of EPP can be done in several ways in this group of languages. Fruitful strategies include remerging deictic elements, such as locatives and temporal adjuncts, or raising of internal arguments. As locatives are elements usually employed by all the languages that fall into this category as a means to satisfy the EPP, our comparison will focus on the use of these elements in two partial pro-drop languages, namely Brazilian Portuguese (BP), and Finnish, and Greek, a full pro-drop language. A comparison with a full pro-drop language will show that the behavior of locatives in partial pro-drop languages is one further characteristic that groups them together in opposition to pro-drop ones, apart from the more constrained distribution of pro. We will be concerned with some structures that contain an overt locative in all three languages, either interpreted as (null impersonals) or not. We will first compare BP to Finnish, and show that while locatives lack an argumental status and simply satisfy the EPP in Finnish as pure expletives, this is not the case in BP. In this language, locatives can both be argumental and expletive-like. By contrast, in Greek, locatives never check the EPP, i.e. they are never expletive-like. Rather they are referential/deictic elements, which perform a function similar to what has been discussed for English locative inversion. |
