Introduction: Order and structure in
syntax
Laura R. Bailey and Michelle Sheehan
University of Kent and Anglia Ruskin University
Hierarchical structure and argument structure are two of the most pervasive and
widely studied properties of natural language.1 The papers in this set of two vol-
umes further explore these aspects of language from a range of perspectives,
touching on a number of fundamental issues, notably the relationship between
linear order and hierarchical structure and variation in subjecthood properties
across languages. The first volume focuses on issues of word order and its re-
lationship to structure. This second volume focuses on argument structure and
subjecthood in particular. In this introduction, we provide a brief overview of
the content of the 10 papers and seven squibs relating to argument structure and
subjecthood, drawing out important threads and questions which they raise.
Many of the contributions in this volume deal with subjects other than canon-
ical referential DPs, such as expletives with some referential meaning, non-DP
subjects, pronouns in pro-drop languages, or impersonal subjects of one kind or
another. Together they provide a snapshot of cross-linguistic variability in sub-
jecthood. Thráinsson’s contribution considers evidence from Faroese that the
possibility of quirky subjects is parametrically connected to other surface prop-
erties by a deep parameter, and ultimately argues that parameters must be ‘soft’.
Greco, Haegeman & Phan consider the status of overt expletives in Vietnamese
and what this implies for the null subject parameter. Their expletives are not like
the canonical ones as they have some discourse meaning. ‘Non-expletive’ exple-
tives also appear in the contribution from Alexiadou & Carvalho, who argue that
locative subjects in some partial pro-drop languages are expletive-like, while in
1
All of the papers in this volume were written on the occasion of Anders Holmberg’s 65th birth-
day in recognition of the enormous contribution he has made to these issues.
Laura R. Bailey & Michelle Sheehan. 2017. Introduction: Order and structure in
syntax. In Michelle Sheehan & Laura R. Bailey (eds.), Order and structure in syn-
tax II: Subjecthood and argument structure, vii–ix. Berlin: Language Science Press.
DOI:10.5281/zenodo.1116787
Laura R. Bailey and Michelle Sheehan
others they are referential. Taraldsen’s chapter also discusses locative subjects,
arguing that the PP subjects found in Norwegian are genuine subjects and move
to canonical subject position. Similarly, Anagnostopoulou uses her contribution
to argue for a difference between Movement and Agree, arguing that some phe-
nomena which have been argued to involve Agree actually involve movement of
the subject to Spec,TP.
Both Egerland and Sigurðsson and the squibs from Engdahl and Krzek focus
on the interpretation of certain kinds of subjects. Sigurðsson discusses those in-
stances of we that cannot be said to include the speaker, and argues for a version
of Ross’s performative hypothesis, similar to that defended by Wiltschko (vol. 1).
Egerland focuses on first-person impersonal pronouns such as German man and
Italian si and argues that a plural interpretation is lexically specified in some lan-
guages, and must be the interpretation in certain contexts. Krzek returns to null
subject languages with a squib on null impersonal subjects in Polish, while Eng-
dahl discusses expletive passive constructions and (un)expected word orders in
the Scandinavian varieties. Wurmbrand’s squib focuses on the status of Icelandic
in relation to the null subject parameter. Based on the behaviour of fake index-
icals, she argues that Icelandic is indeed a partial null subject language, despite
its exceptional behaviour in certain respects.
A number of the contributions focus on object arguments rather than sub-
jects. Van der Wal presents data from Bantu languages and shows that they differ
with respect to their symmetry and case-licensing properties in ditransitive con-
structions. She further proposes a novel implicational hierarchy to capture the
observed patterns and provides a formalization of this in terms of sensitivity to
topicality. It is the absence of ditransitives that fuels Bobaljik’s squib, as he notes
that Icelandic does not allow ECM distransitives despite lacking the adjacency
condition supposed to ban them. This in turn means that Case Theory cannot
explain this systematic gap. Lee’s squib deals with object drop in Chinese, and
returns to the theme of non-specific arguments with indefinite antecedents. Al-
gryani combines the themes of ellipsis and answers to questions with a proposal
for fragment answers in Arabic. Fassi Fehri focuses on the role of gender features
on all arguments, arguing that a combination of properties means that gender has
a range of meanings including diminutive and evaluative, among others.
Lastly, two of the squibs are about the properties of compounds: recursive
ones in the case of Mukai, while Johannessen discusses the class of parasynthetic
compounds in Norwegian of the type brown-eyed, whose heads do not surface
alone as adjectives.
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1 Introduction: Order and structure in syntax
This volume, like the first, provides new data and analysis based on a wide
range of languages. In all these papers, the influence of the work of Anders
Holmberg can be observed, from the typology of null subject languages and the
status of expletive, locative and generic subjects to the syntax of ditransitives
and the status of V2.
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