Null expletives in Malay
Malay is not known to have expletives due to their absence in the grammar, but this does not necessarily entail that expletives do not exist altogether. Gaps are observed in constructions with positions in which one would expect an expletive in a strictly non-pro-drop language such as English, hence...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2020
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/15282/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/15282/1/37434-125551-3-PB.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848813760624459776 |
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| author | Amir Rashad Mustaffa, |
| author_facet | Amir Rashad Mustaffa, |
| author_sort | Amir Rashad Mustaffa, |
| building | UKM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Malay is not known to have expletives due to their absence in the grammar, but this does not necessarily entail that expletives do not exist altogether. Gaps are observed in constructions with positions in which one would expect an expletive in a strictly non-pro-drop language such as English, hence making it seem as though Malay has a phonetically null variety of expletive. This phenomenon is common in attested pro-drop languages; however, data from Malay have not been properly documented and a principled account of the hypothesised existence of null expletives in Malay is lacking in the literature. This paper attempts to confirm whether Malay does have expletives by examining certain null-subject constructions through Chomsky’s (1982) Extended Projection Principle and comparing Malay with English and Irish. All cited examples in Malay are from the online archive of Utusan newspapers and those in Irish are from McCloskey (1991) and McCloskey (1996). All other examples are from consultants who are native speakers. It is found that Malay obeys the EPP, based on the obligatory movement of a subject into TP, which consequently makes it necessary for the use of a null expletive when no other constituent is able to raise to satisfy the EPP. The merging of a null expletive therefore creates an expletive-argument chain that causes the definiteness restriction in the existential construction, which can be overridden by substituting the expletive with clitic -nya on the verb. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T00:23:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | oai:generic.eprints.org:15282 |
| institution | Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T00:23:19Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | oai:generic.eprints.org:152822020-09-29T12:24:00Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/15282/ Null expletives in Malay Amir Rashad Mustaffa, Malay is not known to have expletives due to their absence in the grammar, but this does not necessarily entail that expletives do not exist altogether. Gaps are observed in constructions with positions in which one would expect an expletive in a strictly non-pro-drop language such as English, hence making it seem as though Malay has a phonetically null variety of expletive. This phenomenon is common in attested pro-drop languages; however, data from Malay have not been properly documented and a principled account of the hypothesised existence of null expletives in Malay is lacking in the literature. This paper attempts to confirm whether Malay does have expletives by examining certain null-subject constructions through Chomsky’s (1982) Extended Projection Principle and comparing Malay with English and Irish. All cited examples in Malay are from the online archive of Utusan newspapers and those in Irish are from McCloskey (1991) and McCloskey (1996). All other examples are from consultants who are native speakers. It is found that Malay obeys the EPP, based on the obligatory movement of a subject into TP, which consequently makes it necessary for the use of a null expletive when no other constituent is able to raise to satisfy the EPP. The merging of a null expletive therefore creates an expletive-argument chain that causes the definiteness restriction in the existential construction, which can be overridden by substituting the expletive with clitic -nya on the verb. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2020-05 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/15282/1/37434-125551-3-PB.pdf Amir Rashad Mustaffa, (2020) Null expletives in Malay. GEMA ; Online Journal of Language Studies, 20 (2). pp. 224-243. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1267 |
| spellingShingle | Amir Rashad Mustaffa, Null expletives in Malay |
| title | Null expletives in Malay |
| title_full | Null expletives in Malay |
| title_fullStr | Null expletives in Malay |
| title_full_unstemmed | Null expletives in Malay |
| title_short | Null expletives in Malay |
| title_sort | null expletives in malay |
| url | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/15282/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/15282/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/15282/1/37434-125551-3-PB.pdf |