Flourishing Creativity & Literacy - Overt and Null Subject Pronouns in Jordanian Arabic

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Terk

The paper examines how morphological features influence the formation of sentences in Jordanian Arabic with overt or null subject pronouns. It provides a comprehensive, descriptive account of how overt and null subject pronouns are distributed in the language and evaluates the degree of optionality within the system. The analysis connects pro-drop possibilities with inflectional morphology and subject-position licensing, drawing on formal syntactic representations.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Pro-drop vs. non-pro-drop and morphology

Subject-position theory and empty categories

Formal syntactic representation (X-Bar, GB, Minimalist/Principles & Parameters)

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 6 No. 4; August 2015 Australian International Academic Centre, Australia Flourishing Creativity & Literacy Overt and Null Subject Pronouns in Jordanian Arabic Islam M. Al-Momani Department of English Language and Literature, Princess Alia University College, Al-Balqa’Applied University, Jordan E-mail: [almomani_islam@yahoo.com](almomani_islam@yahoo.com) Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.4p. 1 URL: [http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.4p.1](http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.4p.1) Received: 25/02/2015 Accepted: 02/05/2015 Abstract The paper aims at examining the role that morphology plays in allowing and/or motivating sentences in Jordanian Arabic (hereafter JA) to be formed with or without subject pronouns. It also aims at giving a comprehensive and descriptive presentation of the distribution of overt and null subject pronouns in JA, and tries to determine to what extent there is optionality in its system. Keywords: null subject pronouns, overt subjects, pro-drop languages, verbal inflectional morphology 1. Introduction The idea that some languages allows verbal arguments to remain unexpressed has gained a great deal of attention in recent years from linguists working within generative grammar. The possibility of not overtly expressing a verbal argument is connected some way to inflectional morphology of the language, i.e., the inflectional markers attached to the verb determines the person number and gender features of the intended subject, and hence, an overt subject is referentially redundant and therefore, can be omitted. By assumption, all languages generate a subject position in the syntactic representation of sentences, the [SPEC, IP] position. But why languages like English for instance always have an overt lexical item in this position while otherlanguages like Arabic and Italian may have an empty category in that syntactic position? This difference could be justified according to the different setting of parameters of Universal Grammar (UG) . Languages that allow unexpressed subjects are referred to as pro-drop languages, and have positive setting, while languages that require the subject to be always expressed and the position to be filled with a lexical material are referred to as non-pro-drop languages , and have negative setting. The option to choose between the use or the non-use of an overt subject NP is considered as a kind of synchronic variation which gives the speaker alternative ways to express the same meaning and thus, speakers choose options available to them as far as the informational content, the meaning is preserved. Labov (1994:568), while reviewing a number of studies related to the speakers ’choice of the two forms, has stated that “……in the stream of speech, one variant or the other is chosen without regard to the maximization of information. On the contrary, the major effects that determine such choices are mechanical: phonetic conditioning and simple repetition ofpreceding structure”. He has also stated, while reviewing a research done by Cameroon (1992) on the relationship between the loss of particular morphological distinctions in Spanish verbal paradigms and the frequency of overt pronoun use, that “….. whatever processes are operating to increase the pronoun use in Latin American dialects, they cannot represent a response to speakers ’perceived need to convey information, by providing pronouns in the particular utterances where verbal inflections are missing”(576) . In languages that have rich inflectional morphology, it is that morphology which identifies the null subject in the event that is licensed and thus makes it possible to have such null subjects. Proposals and researches for the formal representation of overt and null subject pronouns were done under the Principles and Parameters theoretical syntax framework. Following the schema set out in the “X-Bar theory”, it has been ar

FAQs

What is the main goal of the paper regarding Jordanian Arabic?

To examine how morphology affects whether Jordanian Arabic sentences are formed with overt or null subject pronouns, and to describe their distribution and system optionality.

How does inflectional morphology relate to null subject pronouns?

In languages with rich inflectional morphology, the morphology helps identify and license null subjects, allowing sentences to be formed without an overt lexical subject.

Why do pro-drop and non-pro-drop languages differ in subject expression?

The paper attributes the difference to parameters in Universal Grammar: pro-drop languages allow unexpressed subjects, while non-pro-drop languages require subjects to be overtly expressed in the relevant syntactic position.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Terk