The Morpho-Syntactic Characteristics of the Lubukusu Null-Subject Pronouns

Abstract

This paper reports an empirical qualitative study that set out to discuss the treatment of null-subjects in Lubukusu as a pro-drop language. Its main objective is to discuss the Lubukusu null-subject pronouns in terms of their morpho-syntactic characteristics. One hypothesis is considered with regard to the prediction it makes for the Lubukusu null subject constructions: (a) there exist null subjects in Lubukusu structures which are specified but unpronounced pronouns that assign values to the uninterpretable features of agreement. Crucial evidence in support of the hypothesis governing this discussion comes from Lubukusu null subject constructions. The discussion adopted the Government and Binding Theory (GB) with some slight aspects of the most recent developments within the Minimalist Program (MP): The Feature Theory. It used the researcher's native speaker intuition to generate appropriate data. Thereafter, native speakers of Lukubusu are chosen as informants to verify the generated data. The data collected were coded for three variables which are: Expletives, Null pronouns in simple sentences and Null pronouns in embedded structures. Results show that there is, indeed, pro in Lubukusu, which is a subject pronoun and is specified for interpretable phi-features.This implies that the nullness is a phonological matter: The null subject is a pronoun which is not pronounced.

Key Words: Anaphor, Argument, Expletives, Null subject Specifier, Subject, Topicalization.