Hysnie Hyska The subject in the Balkan languages (original) (raw)

2010, Conference preceding

Balkan languages have been exchanging for a long time their lexical items. These languages share sets of typological properties and their grammatical structure, except the differences, show some other similarities. Topic of this paper is the subject in the Balkan languages, its structure and its position, the phenomenon of the Null Subject. We are going to present the similarities and the differences between subject structure in the Balkan languages. The structure of the subject is a syntax issue, it concerns with the linguistic elements which play this role inside the clause. This paper analyzes the Noun Phrases in the role of the subject, also their constituents, like determinatives, modifiers and quantifiers. We found out that there are structure similarities in Balkan subjects like: the determinatives position, their role inside the NP structure, the part of speech that may have the subject’s function. An important issue is the subject’s position within the clause, its relations with the predicate and the word order of some Balkan languages. These languages in general have e free word order and are SVO languages.The subject in Balkan language may be pre verbal or post verbal. Another linguistic phenomenon in the Balkan languages is the Pro- Drop or Null Subject. Balkan languages result as pro- drop languages: they allow a Null subject within their clauses. Beside this, the pro subject is possible in the subordinate clauses too. We have analyzed in a Generative view this phenomenon, based on recent linguistic studies. We found out that it is the verb Agreement, with its features [+T,+AGR] which licenses the pro subject. In this framework we have analyzed not only the clauses of some Balkan languages, but also their sentences. We found out that not all the Null subjects of the subordinate clauses are pro-dropt. Some languages like Albanian and Italian have a Null Subject in their clauses, because both of them have a rich inflectional verbal system. We are going to explore what is going on with the Balkan languages, if they have or not Null Subjects in their sentences. Key words: Sprachbund, Balkan languages, subject, structure, Pro- Drop, Null Subject.