Covert nominals and argument ellipsis in Punjabi

Abstract

The focus of the study is to find out the potential identity of null arguments in Punjabi. However, the paper provides different patterns of interpretations of null arguments present in Punjabi by keeping in view the propositions of Takahashi (2012, July). The special focus is given on the phenomenon named as Argument Ellipsis (AE), which is used as syntactically mediated process for investigating the relationship of verbal agreement and scrambling with AE in null argument language Punjabi. It was observed that AE in Punjabi licenses the null arguments on direct and indirect objects, subjects and selected PPs. The study finds out by observing and manipulating different configurations of subject-object agreement in Punjabi that there is no role critically played by verbal agreement in order to restrict AE. The research also specifies that scrambling approach for licensing is also not reliable predictor for AE in Punjabi. However, bare nouns approach is more appropriate for the analysis of AE in Punjabi as the bare nouns license the sloppy interpretations, which are marked either indefinite or definite nouns for null arguments in Punjabi. This approach can be tested for further cross-linguistic examination of AE, and hopefully it would be regarded as the only underlying cause of argument ellipsis for future studies.

Keywords

• Anti-agreement approach
• argument ellipsis
• covert nominal
• null arguments
• scrambling
• syntactic analysis