Soares, E.C., Miller, P.H. and Hemforth, B. (2019) The Effect of Verbal Agreement Marking on the Use of Null and Overt Subjects: A Quantitative Study of First Person Singular in Brazilian Portuguese. Forum Linguistico, 16, 3579-3600. https://doi.org/10.5007/1984-8412.2019v16n1p3579

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Discourse Factors Involved in Distribution of Null-Subject Phenomenon in Mandarin Chinese

  AUTHORS: Siqi Shi

  KEYWORDS: Null Subject, Pragmatic Factors, Radical NSLs, Mandarin Chinese

  JOURNAL NAME: Open Journal of Social Sciences, Vol.7 No.10, October 17, 2019

  ABSTRACT: This paper aims to examine the null-subject phenomenon in Mandarin Chinese, a discourse-oriented radical pro-drop language, and the factors that contribute to the presence/absence of overt subject pronouns in the language. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 11 Chinese high school students to collect data regarding the usage of null subjects by native Mandarin Chinese speakers. Three discourse factors that affect the distribution of null subjects, namely: 1) register, 2) speakers’ agency, and 3) nature of information conveyed by subject pronouns, are identified and analysed based on the collected data. Therefore, we should pay more attention to pragmatic factors when refining syntactic theories regarding null-subjecthood in future studies.