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In:Null or Nothing: Zero elements in Romance syntax and morphology
Edited by Peter Herbeck and Natascha Pomino
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 291] 2026
► pp. 251–282

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Non-coordinated null objects in Medieval French

A diachronic study

 | Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Published online: 27 February 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.291.09pon
Abstract
The article investigates non-coordinated anaphoric null objects (ANOs) in medieval French. The study provides an overview of the contexts in which ANOs are attested and of their evolution during the medieval period (13th to 15th centuries). Through this overview, the paper argues that a uniform analysis of ANOs in medieval French is not possible by arguing that ANOs can be of different types. In main and most embedded clauses, the ANOs are null pronouns while in non-finite adjunct clauses, the ANOs are gaps. In the most frequent context of object omission (the reduction of a clitic cluster), the ANOs are not the result of an empty category but rather a case of post syntactic clitic omission.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Null objects in medieval French
    • 2.1The nature of anaphoric null objects (ANOs)
    • 2.2Previous studies on ANOs in medieval French
  • 3.A corpus study of non-coordinated ANOs
    • 3.1Methodology
    • 3.2The different contexts of ANOs in the corpus
    • 3.3The distribution of non-coordinated ANOs
  • 4.Anaphoric Null Objects in competition with overt objects
  • 5.Missing objects and pro: Is a uniform analysis possible?
    • 5.1Preliminary considerations
    • 5.2The data in light of different syntactic structures
      • 5.2.1Non-finite adjuncts and (Parasitic) Gaps
      • 5.2.2Écrasement of 3rd person clitic clusters
    • 5.3Summing up
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (40)
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