In:Null Objects from a Cross-Linguistic and Developmental Perspective
Edited by Pilar Barbosa and Cristina Flores
[Language Faculty and Beyond 19] 2025
► pp. 1–26
Null objects from a cross-linguistic and developmental perspective
Published online: 15 April 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.19.01bar
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.19.01bar
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Typology of missing objects
- 2.1Lexically constrained missing objects
- 2.2Non-lexically constrained object drop
- 2.3Null objects and V-stranding VP ellipsis
- 3.Current analyses of object drop and the contributions in this volume
- 4.Concluding remarks
Note References
References (90)
Alexopoulou, T., & Folli, R. (2019). Topic
Strategies and the Internal Structure of Nominal Arguments in Greek and
Italian. Linguistic
Inquiry, 50, 439–486.
Authier, J.-M. (1989). Arbitrary
Null Objects and Unselective Binding. In O. Jaeggli & K. Safir (Eds.), The
Null Subject
Parameter (pp. 45–67). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Barbosa, P. (2019). Pro
as a minimal nP: toward a unified approach to pro-drop. Linguistic
Inquiry, 50, 487–526.
Bruhn de Garavito, J., & Guijarro-Fuentes, P. (2002). L2
acquisition of indefinite object drop in Spanish. In J. Costa, & M. J. Freitas (Eds.), Proceedings
of the GALA’2001 Conference on Language
Acquisition (pp. 60–67). Lisbon: Associação Portuguesa de Linguística.
Castilla, A. P., & Pérez-Leroux, A. T. (2010). Omissions
and substitutions in Spanish object clitics: Developmental optionality as a property of the representational
system. Language
Acquisition, 17, 2–25.
Costa, J., & Duarte, I. (2003). Objetos nulos em debate. In I. Castro & I. Duarte (Eds.), Razões e Emoção. Miscelânea de Estudos em Homenagem a Maria Helena Mira Mateus (pp. 249–260). Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda.
Cummins, S., & Roberge, Y. (2004). Null
Objects in French and English. In J. Auger, J. C. Clements, & B. Vance (Eds.), Contemporary
Approaches to Romance Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 3rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL),
Bloomington, Indiana, April 2003 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory
258), 121–138. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Cyrino, S. (1994). O objeto nulo no português brasileiro: um estudo
sintático-diacrônico. [The null object in Brazilian Portuguese: a
syntactic-diachronic study]. PhD
Dissertation. Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
(1997). O
objeto nulo no português brasileiro: um estudo
sintático-diacrônico. Londrina: Editora da UEL.
(2016). The
null object in Romania Nova. In M. Kato & F. Ordoñez (Eds.), The
morphosyntax of Portuguese and Spanish in Latin
America (pp. 177–203). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(2017a). On
animacy restrictions for the null object in Brazilian
Portuguese. In L. Hellan, A. Malchulov & M. Cennamo (Eds.), Contrastives
studies in verbal
valency (pp. 275–294). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
(2017b). Reflexões
sobre a marcação morfológica do objeto direto por a em português
brasileiro. Estudos Linguísticos e
Literários, 58, 83–103.
(2019). O
objeto nulo do português brasileiro: sincronia e
diacronia. In C. Galves, M. Kato & I. Roberts (Eds.), Português
brasileiro: uma segunda viagem
diacrônica (pp. 173–200). Campinas: Editora da Unicamp.
(2021). Brazilian
Portuguese null objects and Spanish Differential Object
Marking. In A. Bárány, T. Biberauer, J. Douglas & S. Vikner (Eds.), Syntactic
architecture and its consequences III: Inside
syntax (pp. 399–427). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Cyrino, S., & Matos, G. (2005). Local
licensers and recovering in VPE. Journal of Portuguese
Linguistics, 4, 79–112.
(2016). Null
objects and VP ellipsis in European and Brazilian
Portuguese. In W. Leo Wetzels, J. Costa & S. Menuzzi (Eds.), The
handbook of Portuguese
linguistics (pp. 294–316). Malden: Wiley.
Cyrino, S., & Irimia, M. (2019). Differential
Object Marking in Brazilian Portuguese. Revista de Letras
(UFPR) 99, 177–201. Available
at: [URL]
(1999). V-movement
and VP-ellipsis. In E. Benmamoun & S. Lappin (Eds.), Fragments:
Studies in ellipsis and
gapping (pp. 124–140). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dvořák, V. (2015). Syntax
of Generic Null Objects Revisited. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley
Linguistics Society, 41.
Erteschik-Shir, N., Ibnbari, L., & Taube, S. (2013). Missing
objects as Topic
Drop. Lingua, 136, 145–169.
Farrell, P. (1990). Null
objects in Brazilian Portuguese. Natural Language and Linguistic
Theory, 8(3), 325–346.
Fillmore, C. (1986). Pragmatically
Controlled Zero Anaphora. Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley
Linguistics Society, 95–107.
Franco, J., & Landa, A. (2003). Null
objects revisited. In R. Núñez-Cedeño, L. López & R. Cameron (Eds.), A
Romance Perspective on Language Knowledge and Use: Selected Papers from the 31st Linguistic Symposium in Romance
Languages (LSRL), Chicago 19–22
April 200 (pp. 311–326). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Frascarelli, M., & Hinterhölz, R. (2007). Types
of topics in German and Italian. In K. Schwabe & S. Winkler (Eds.), On
information structure, meaning and form: generalization across
languages (pp. 87–116). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Giannakidou, A., & Merchant, J. (1997). On
the interpretation of null indefinite objects in Greek. Studies in Greek
Linguistics, 17, 141–155.
Goldberg, L. M. (2005). Verb-Stranding
VP Ellipsis: A Cross-Linguistic Study. Doctoral
dissertation, Montreal, QC: McGill University.
Gribanova, V. (2013). A
New Argument for Verb-Stranding Verb Phrase Ellipsis. Linguistic
Inquiry, 44(1), 145–157.
(2021). On
the typology of verb-stranding ellipsis: focus, identity, and movement. Brussels
Conference on Generative
Linguistics 14, 1–22.
von Heusinger, K. & Kempson, R. (2004). Choice
functions in semantics. Research on Languageand
Computation, 2, 307–308.
Hoekstra, T., & Roberts, I. (1993). Middle
Constructions in Dutch and English. In E. Reuland & W. Abraham (Eds), Knowledge
and
Language. Dordrecht: Springer.
Huang, C. T. J. (1984). On
the Distribution and Reference of the Empty Categories. Linguistic
Inquiry, 15, 531–574.
(1991). Remarks
on the status of the null object. In R. Freidin (Ed.), Principles
and parameters in comparative
grammar (pp. 56–76). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kurafuji, T. (2019). A
choice function approach to null arguments. Linguistics and
Philosophy, 42(1), 3–44.
Kato, M. A. (1993). The
distribution of pronouns and null elements in object position in Brazilian
Portuguese. In W. Ashby et al. (Eds), Linguistic
Perspectives on the Romance Languages (Current Issues in Linguistic
Theory,103); 225.36. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Kato, M. A., Martins, A. M., & Nunes, J. (2023). Português
Brasileiro, Português Europeu, Sintaxe comparada. São Paulo, Editora Contexto.
Katz, J., & Postal, P. (1964). An
Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions. (Research Monographs,
26.) Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press
Kratzer, A. (1998). Scope
or Pseudo-Scope? Are There Wide-Scope Indefinites?. In S. Rothstein (Ed.), Events
in
Grammar (pp. 163–196). Dordrecht: Kluwert.
Laca, B. (2013). Spanish
Bare Plurals and Topicalization. In J. Kabatek, A. Wall (Eds.), New
Perspectives on Bare Noun Phrases in Romance and
Beyond (pp. 95–120). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Landa, A., & Franco, J. (1992). Objetos
nulos en el castellano del País Vasco: dos estatus para dos interpretaciones. Anuario
Del Seminario De Filología Vasca “Julio De
Urquijo”, 26(3), 777–92.
Landau, I. (2018). Missing
objects in Hebrew: Argument ellipsis, not VP ellipsis. Glossa: a journal of general
linguistics, 3(1): 76.
(2021). Ellipsis
with a coordinated antecedent: An alternative to V-stranding VP-ellipsis. Studia
Linguistica, 75(1), 1–23.
(2023). Argument
Ellipsis as External Merge after Transfer. Natural Language and Linguistic
Theory, 41, 793–845.
Lardiere, D. (2008). Feature
Assembly in second language acquisition. In J. Liceras, H. Zobl, & H. Goodluck (Eds.), The
Role of Formal Features in Second Language
Acquisition (pp. 106–140). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Matos, G. (1992). Construções
de Elipse do predicado em Português — SV Nulo e Despojamento. PhD
Dissertation, Universidade de Lisboa.
McShane, M. J. (1999). The ellipsis of accusative direct objects in Russian, Polish and Czech. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 7, 45–88.
Miller, P., & Pullum, G. K. (2014). Exophoric
VP ellipsis. In P. Hofmeister & E. Norcliffe (Eds.), The
core and the periphery: Data-driven perspectives on syntax inspired by Ivan A.
Sag (pp. 1–28). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Mittwoch, A. (2005). Unspecified
arguments in episodic and habitual sentences. In N. Erteschik-Shir & T. Rapoport (Eds.), The
Syntax of
Aspect (pp. 237–254). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ordoñez, F. & Roca, F. (2018). Differential
Object Marking (DOM) and clitic subspecification in Catalonian
Spanish. In A. Gallego (Ed.), The
syntactic variation of Spanish
dialects (pp. 35–59). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Panagiotidis, P. (2002). Pronouns,
Clitics and Empty Nouns. ‘Pronominality’ and licensing in
syntax. Benjamins.
Partee, B. H. (1987). Noun
phrase interpretation and type shifting principles. In J. Groenendijk, D. de Jong & M. Stokhof (Eds.), Studies
in discourse representation theories and the theory of generalized
quantifiers (pp. 115–144). Dordrecht: Foris.
Pérez-Leroux, A. T., Pirvulescu, M., & Roberge, Y. (2008). Null
objects in child language: Syntax and the
lexicon. Lingua, 118, 370–398.
Pérez-Leroux, A. T., Pirvulescu, M., Roberge, Y., & Castilla, A. (2013). On
the development of null implicit objects in L1 English. The Canadian Journal of
Linguistics/La revue canadienne de
linguistique, 58, 443–464.
Pérez-Leroux, A. T., Pirvulescu, M., & Roberge, Y. (2018). Direct
objects and language
acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Postal, P. (1966). On
so-called pronouns in English. In F. Dinneen (Ed.), Report
on the seventeenth annual round table meeting on linguistics and language
studies (pp. 177–206). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Radford, A. (1977). Italian
Syntax: Transformational and Relational
Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Raposo, E. P. (1986). On
the null object in European Portuguese. In O. Jaeggli & C. Silva-Corvalán (Eds.), Studies
in Romance
Linguistics (p. 373–390). Dordrecht: Foris.
(1998). Definite/Zero
Alternations in Portuguese: Towards a Unification of Topic
Constructions. In A. Schwegler, B. Tranel & M. Uribe-Etxebarria Eds.), Romance
Linguistics: Theoretical
Perspectives (pp. 197–212). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Reinhart, T. (1997). Quantifier
Scope: How Labor is Divided Between QR and Choice Functions. Linguistics and
Philosophy, 20, 335–397.
Richards, M. (2008). Defective
Agree, Case Alternations, and the Prominence of
Person. In M. Richards & A. L. Malchukov (Eds.), Scales (pp. 137–161), Universität
Leipzig: Linguistische Arbeitsberichte 86.
Rinke, E., Flores, C., & Barbosa, P. (2018). Null
objects in the spontaneous speech of monolingual and bilingual speakers of European
Portuguese. Probus, 30(1), 93–120.
Rizzi, L. (1986). Null
Objects in Italian and the Theory of pro. Linguistic
Inquiry, 17(3), 501–557.
Rodríguez-Mondoñedo, M. (2007). The
syntax of objects: agree and Differential Object Marking. Unpublished PhD
Dissertation, University of Connecticut.
Ruda, M. (2017). On
the syntax of missing objects. A study with special reference to English, Polish and
Hungarian. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Schwenter, S. A. (2014). Two kinds of Differential Object Marking in Portuguese and Spanish. In P. Amaral, & A. M. Carvalho (Eds.), Portuguese/Spanish Interfaces (pp. 237–260). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Soltan, U. (2020). On
null objects in Egyptian Arabic: An Argument Ellipsis analysis. Brill’s Journal of
Afroasiatic Languages and
Linguistics, 12(2), 204–259.
Takahashi, D. (2008). Noun
Phrase Ellipsis. In S. Miyagawa & M. Saito (Eds.), The
Oxford Handbook of Japanese
Linguistics (pp. 394–422). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tomioka, S. (2003). The
semantics of Japanese null pronouns and its cross-linguistic
implications. In K. Schwabe & S. Winkler (Eds.), The
Interfaces: Deriving and interpreting omitted
structures (pp. 321–339). Benjamins.
(1998). The
laziest pronouns. In N. Akatsuka, H. Hoji, S. Iwasaki, S.-O. Sohn, & S. Strauss (Eds.), Japanese/Korean
Linguistics 7 (pp. 515–531). Standford: SCLI Publications.
Tsimpli, I. M., & Dimitrakopoulou, M. (2007). The
Interpretability Hypothesis: Evidence from Wh-Interrogatives in Second Language
Acquisition. Second Language
Research, 23, 215–242.
Zubizarreta, M. L. (1982). On
the relationship of the lexicon to syntax. Unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, M.I.T, Cambridge.
