Null subjects in Middle Low German
As is well-known, referential null subjects (RNS) are disallowed in the Modern Germanic
languages (Rosenkvist 2009), with a few exceptions (e.g. Axel & Weiß 2010). While
the older Germanic languages have been studied in great detail (recently by Rosenkvist
2009, Axel 2007, Schlachter 2012, Van Gelderen 2012, Walkden 2013, 2014, Kinn 2014),
considerably less is known about the intermediate periods. The present paper presents
an exploratory study of the distribution of referential null subjects (RNS) in Middle Low
German (MLG), the West-Germanic language spoken and written in northern Germany
(and, in connection to the Hanseatic trade, around the North and Baltic seas) between
c. 1250 and 1600, the syntax of which has only recently begun to attract the attention of
linguists. It is shown in this paper that RNS are attested in MLG, and that they pose
a challenge both for an analysis in terms of partial pro-drop as well as in terms of topic
drop.
The present study is based on a small corpus of two Westphalian texts from the 15th
century. In the great majority of the cases, a pronominal subject is omitted in a main
clause introduced by the conjunction vnde ‘and’. However, an analysis in terms of conjunction reduction is not available in the relevant cases, as the clauses in the context
containing the referent of the RNS are typically adjunct clauses of different types, like
relative or conditional clauses. In (1), the RNS does appear in a second conjunct, but the
referent of the RNS is not found in the first conjunct (so is leider de memorie vergheetende), but in a concessive clause preceding it. Furthermore, (1) is an instance of several
in the corpus of a number mismatch between the overt referent in the adverbial clause
and the null pronoun in the main clause, here singular vs. plural. In (2), the referent is
contained in the first of two conjuncts, but it is not the subject there, but the object. The
overt nominative form is again found inside an embedded clause (dat ghi ... weerden).
some tijt yn der kerken
(1) Want al
hoert manich sympel leye
for even.though hears many.a simple layman some time in the church
wat
gudes seggen
vn(de) de hillighe scrift
exponeeren
of
something good being.said and
the Holy Scripture being.exposed or
duden
. so is leider
de memorie v(er)gheetende . als een
being.interpreted so is unfortunately the memory forgetting
as a
mester in der nature(n) bescrijft . vn(de) [_] hebben=t kort
vergheeten.
master in the nature
writes
and
[_] have.3pl=it shortly forgotten
‘For even though many a simple layman occasionally hears in church something
good being said and the Holy Scripture being explained or interpreted, the memory
is unfortunately forgetful, as a master of the sciences writes, and [they] forget it
immediately.’
(Spieghel der leyen; Münster 1444)
(2) God gheue
iv
also
to soeken vn(de) to lesen dat ghi
God give.sbjn you.acc.pl therefore to search and
to read that you.nom.pl
daer by verbetert weerden . Vnde [_] willen dit boeck to godes eeren
there at improved be
and [_] will this book to God’s honour
beghinne(n).
begin
‘May God inspire you to search and to read, in order for you to be improved by
it. And may [you] begin (to read) this book to honour God.’ (Spieghel der leyen;
Münster 1444)
An analysis in terms of topic drop, in the form in which it is still available in the presentday Germanic languages, is equally doubtful despite the telling absence of filled SpecCP in
clauses with RNS, as unlike in topic drop in e.g. Modern German, MLG null arguments
are never objects in our corpus, and, as shown in (1), their antecedent may be (and
more often than not is) situated within an embedded clause, which is also impossible in
present-day Germanic topic drop.
A further property of MLG RNS is that they are frequently 1st or 2nd person in the
corpus used for this study. This complicates an analysis of MLG as a partial null-subject
language along the lines proposed by Walkden (2014) for the early Germanic languages,
who argues that RNS in these languages were licensed by an aboutness topic operator
in ShiftP in the left periphery (cf. Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl 2007, Sigurðsson 2011),
and therefore predicts them to be mostly 3rd person aboutness topics. Under Walkden’s
analysis, both logophoric operators in SpecΛA P and SpecΛP P and an aboutness topic
operator in ShiftP would license RNS in MLG, making MLG look more like a radical
pro-drop language. However, MLG RNS make up only c. 10% of all referential pronouns
in the corpus studied, and null objects are not found.
Despite a number of differences, the MLG situation bears similarities to the Early
New High German situation (cf. Volodina 2009, 2011) in that MLG RNS can neither
be analysed on a par with Old High German (or Old Saxon) partial null subjects, nor
with Modern German topic drop. We propose that MLG is in the transition to a topicdrop language of the ‘modern’ type. Adapting Walkden’s (2014) analysis somewhat, an
aboutness topic operator in ShiftP may license an RNS in SpecTP under Agree, but with
Kinn (2014), we see no reason why 1st or 2nd person subjects should not also be able to be
aboutness topics licensed through ShiftP. Additionally to clause-internal licensing, MLG
RNS are subject to constraints regarding establishing the referent in the discourse.
We agree with Sigurðsson (2011:283) that reference and syntactic licensing (through
C/edge-linking) of RNS should be kept separate. The fact that the values of the C/edgelinkers are computed sentence-internally within narrow syntax can account for number
mismatches with a contextually given referent as seen in (1), where the referential identity
is derived by a conversational implicature (many a layman > many laymen). The fact
that in many cases, the referent of an RNS is embedded inside a preceding adjunct clause
makes RNS in our MLG corpus look a bit like null donkey anaphora. We therefore propose to understand the context-scanning mechanism only briefly sketched in Sigurðsson
(2011:283-285) in terms of identifying a binder for such an anaphor and argue that the
referent for MLG RNS may be provided by a narrative discourse topic (cf. Sigurðsson
1993), rather than an aboutness topic in the more narrow sense.
Selected References
Frascarelli, M. & R. Hinterhölzl. 2007. Types of topics in German and Italian. In
K.Schwabe& S.Winkler (eds.), On Information Structure, Meaning and Form, 87-116.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Kinn, K. 2014. Conditions on Null Arguments in Old Norwegian. Paper presented at
Understanding pro-drop, Trento.
Rosenkvist, H. 2009. Referential Null Subjects in Germanic Languages – an Overview.
Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 84: 151-180.
Sigurðsson, H.A. 2011. Conditions on Argument Drop. Linguistic Inquiry 42: 267-304.
Volodina, A. 2009. Pro-drop im frühen Neuhochdeutschen. In G.Brandt & R.Hünecke
(eds.), Historische Soziolinguistik des Deutschen IX, 51-66. Stuttgart: Heinz.
Walkden, G. 2014. Syntactic Reconstruction and Proto-Germanic. Oxford: OUP.