Title

Finiteness and Null Arguments in Child Cantonese

Author

Thomas Hun-tak Lee

Genre

Article  

Pages

365-393`

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Language

English

Key words

Child Language, Chinese Cantonese, pro-drop

Abstract

      Recent accounts of pro-drop based on studies of English and German lead one to expect certain distributional characteristics for Chinese child language. Parallel to what has been found for pro-drop in other languages, null subjects in Chinese child language may occur only in non-finite clause, and be prohibited in sentences with wh-phrases. Topic bound null subjects may be restricted to third person reference, and discourse-identified null subjects may only appear in main clause. Longitudinal data form Cantonese-speaking children fail to provide support for these predictions, suggesting that some of the principles used in current theories of pro-drop are not universal constraints that govern the initial stages of language development. The findings also shed light on fundamental differences between null-topic languages like German and Chinese, underscoring the need to critically rethink the analyses of pro-drop for adult Chinese, in particular the theories of Huang (1984, 1989).