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Null Subjects and Clitic Climbing

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The Null Subject Parameter

Part of the book series: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory ((SNLT,volume 15))

Abstract

In earlier work,1 we proposed that the contrast between French and Italian seen in the clitic climbing construction in (1) should be related to the contrast between them seen in (2) concerning null subjects:

  1. (1)a.

    *Jean les veut voir.

  2. b.

    Gianni li vuole vedere. John them-want to-see

  3. (2)a.

    *Pleut.

  4. b.

    Piove. Rains

This paper corresponds in its essentials to a talk given at the 1987 GLOW Workshop on dialectology. For helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, we are grateful to Osvaldo Jaeggli, Jean-Yves Pollock and Kenneth Safir.

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Authors
  1. Richard S. Kayne
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Linguistics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089-1693, USA

    Osvaldo A. Jaeggli

  2. Program in Linguistics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 08903, USA

    Kenneth J. Safir

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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Kayne, R.S. (1989). Null Subjects and Clitic Climbing. In: Jaeggli, O.A., Safir, K.J. (eds) The Null Subject Parameter. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2540-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2540-3_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-55608-087-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2540-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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