Pro-drop language
In the classical version, languages which not only lack agreement morphology but also allow extensive dropping of pronouns—such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese—are not included, as is made clear in a footnote: "The principle suggested is fairly general, but does not apply to such languages as Japanese in which pronouns can be missing much more freely.
[11] It has been observed that pro-drop languages are those with either rich inflection for person and number (Persian, Polish, Czech, Portuguese, etc.)
While the mechanism by which overt pronouns are more "useful" in English than in Japanese is obscure, and there are exceptions to this observation, it still seems to have considerable descriptive validity.
These dropped pronouns can be inferred from previous discourse, from the context of the conversation, or generally shared knowledge.
The following example from Jung (2004:719) Korean shows the omission of both pronouns in the subject and object position.
[15]Consider the following examples from Japanese:[2] このKonoThisケーキkēkicakeはwaTOP美味しい。oishii.tasty-PRS誰DareWhoがgaSUBJ焼いたyaitabake-PASTの？no?Qこの ケーキ は 美味しい。 誰 が 焼いた の？Kono kēki wa oishii.
Did (you) like (it)?The words in parentheses and boldface in the English translations (it in the first line; I, you, and it in the second) appear nowhere in the Japanese sentences but are understood from context.
The above-mentioned examples from Japanese are readily rendered into Mandarin: 这ZhèThis块kuàipiece蛋糕dàngāocake很hěnDEGREE好吃。hǎochī.tasty.谁ShéiWho烤kǎobake的?de?MODIFY这 块 蛋糕 很 好吃。 谁 烤 的?Zhè kuài dàngāo hěn hǎochī.
Languages with partial pro-drop have both agreement and referential null subjects that are restricted with respect to their distribution.
In the East Slavic languages even the objective pronoun "его" can be omitted in the present and future tenses (both imperfect and perfective).
In these languages, the missing pronoun is not inferred strictly from pragmatics, but partially indicated by the morphology of the verb (Вижу, Виждам, Widzę, Vidim, etc...).
However, the past tense of both imperfective and perfective in modern East Slavic languages inflects by gender and number rather than the person due to the fact that the present tense conjugations of the copula "to be" (Russian быть, Ukrainian бути, Belarusian быць) have practically fallen out of use.
In Finnish, the verb inflection replaces first- and second-person pronouns in simple sentences: menen "I go", menette "all of you go".
In the example below, the subject is in the ergative case and the verb agrees in number and gender with the direct object.
In the example below, the subject is in the dative case and the verb agrees in number and gender with the direct object.
Example: Βλέπειςsee.2sgεκείνοthatτοtheκούτσουρο;log?ΘαWouldήτανbe.3sgκαλόgoodγιαforτηtheφωτιά.fire.Είναιbe.pres.3sgτελείωςcompletelyξερό.driedΒλέπεις εκείνο το κούτσουρο; Θα ήταν καλό για τη φωτιά.
(It) has completely dried.Like their parent Latin, most Romance languages (with the notable exception of French) are categorised as pro-drop as well, though generally only in the case of subject pronouns.
In Spanish, the verb is inflected for both person and number, thus expression of the pronoun is unnecessary because it is grammatically redundant.
[13] In the following example, the inflection on the verb ver, 'see', signals informal 2nd person singular, thus the pronoun is dropped.
Similarly, from both the context and verbal morphology, the listener can infer that the second two utterances are referring to the log, so the speaker omits the pronoun that would appear in English as "it."
(It) is completely dry.Although Spanish is a predominantly pro-drop language, not all grammatical contexts allow for a null pronoun.
(It) is completely dry.Italian further demonstrates full pro-drop by allowing for the possibility of a salient, referential, definite subject of finite clauses.
The two are compared below, respectively: Examples of omitted subject: EstásAreatoverseeestethistronco?log?SeriaWould bebomgoodparaforathefogueira.campfire.SecouDriedcompletamente.completely(European Portuguese) Estás a ver este tronco?
(It) has completely dried.Está(s)Arevendoseeingessethistronco?log?SeriaWould bebomgoodprafor-thefogueira.campfire.SecouDriedcompletamente.completely(Brazilian Portuguese) Está(s) vendo esse tronco?
Can you buy it?Modern Spanish and Portuguese are also notable amongst Romance languages because they have no specific pronouns for circumstantial complements (arguments denoting circumstance, consequence, place or manner, modifying the verb but not directly involved in the action) or partitives (words or phrases denoting a quantity of something).
Arabic is considered a null-subject language, as demonstrated by the following example: sāʻidhelp.PRES.3SG youghayrak,other,yusāʻiduk.help.PST.3SG yousāʻid ghayrak, yusāʻiduk.
The dropping of pronouns is generally restricted to very informal speech and certain fixed expressions, and the rules for their use are complex and vary among dialects and registers.
A noted instance was the "lived the dream" section of George H. W. Bush's speech at the 1988 Republican National Convention.
[31][32][33][34] Colloquial and dialectal German, unlike the standard language, are also partially pro-drop and typically allow deletion of the subject pronoun only in main clauses without inversion.
Classical Chinese exhibits extensive dropping not only of pronouns but also of any terms (subjects, verbs, objects, etc.)
