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In:New Insights into Theoretical Syntax from Asian Languages: Studies in honor of C.-T. James Huang
Edited by Andrew Simpson
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 290] 2026
► pp. 118–157

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Pro-drop, E-type pronouns, and agreement with reference to the null subject in Chinese and Japanese

 | MIT
Published online: 15 January 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.290.05miy
Abstract
Kuroda (1965) suggested that the empty element in Japanese is a covert pronoun. Otani and Whitman (1991), following Huang (1987a/b, 1991), showed that the empty element may have a sloppy interpretation, which is unexpected with an ordinary referential pronoun. Oku (1998) proposes that this empty element is the result of argument ellipsis. I will return to Kuroda’s original idea and develop an analysis in which the empty elements are uniformly pronominal. Following Oikonomou (2017), I argue that the sloppy interpretation is due to an E-type pronoun interpretation. A key comparison involves the null subject in Chinese and Japanese, which behave differently with regard to sloppy interpretation, difficult — or impossible — in Chinese, but readily possible in Japanese. This difference is due to the Chinese subject pro being the covert version of a weak pronoun, while the subject pro in Japanese, as well as those found in Romance, are the covert version of a strong pronoun.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Laying the groundwork
  • 2.Agreement in Chinese
    • 2.1Strong uniformity and pro
    • 2.2Subject pro in Chinese
  • 3.Chinese subject pro as a weak pronoun
    • 3.1On Huang’s (1984, 1989) Generalized Control Rule
  • 4.Toward a unified analysis
    • 4.1Unified account based on pro
    • 4.2Evidence that the sloppy interpretation cannot be due to argument ellipsis
    • 4.3On Hoji (1998)
  • 5.E-type pronoun and agreement
  • 6.Large-scale survey of Chinese and Japanese speakers for sloppy interpretation
    • 6.1Japanese study
    • 6.2Chinese study
      • Part 1.Sentences without context
      • Part 2.Sentences with context
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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