Georg A. Kaiser

Universität Konstanz

(Null) subjects and (null) expletives in Iberoromance

It is well-known that all Iberoromance languages are null-subject languages. They are characterized by the fact that subject pronouns are in general only used for reasons of emphasis or desambiguition. This property correlates with the fact that in these languages non-referential subjects have to be obligatory null.

This, however, seems to hold only for standard varieties of Iberoromance. It will be shown that all Iberoromance languages dispose of (dialectal) varieties where 'impersonal constructions' may contain lexical subjects. I would like to discuss some of these data in a more detailed manner asking whether or not they account against the general (generative) assumption according to which null subject languages do not allow lexical expletives.