Empty categories
From Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus (IcePaHC)
Empty categories
- Traces
- Pied piping
- Missing copula
- Expletives (*exp*): Note that (NP-SBJ *exp*) is not used in the Icelandic corpus for the experiencers of known quirky-case-verbs; see the documentation on Quirky Case. [EFS: athuga hvað maður gerir við (þó pro/exp hásumar væri) en (það rigndi í gær) er bara með venjulegt NP-SBJ]. Note that in early (Old Icelandic) texts, it may be difficult to distinguish between *exp* and *pro* in cases where there is an empty subject and it has a roughly impersonal (i.e. "maður") interpretation. In searches where you want to include all such sentences or all impersonals in early texts, it is wise to include both *exp* and *pro* in your searches.
*arb*: arbitrary PRO in the IP-INF complements of inherent ECM verbs.
*pro*: other empty subjects. Note that in early (Old Icelandic) texts, it may be difficult to distinguish between *exp* and *pro* in cases where there is an empty subject and it has a roughly impersonal (i.e. "maður") interpretation. In searches where you want to include all such sentences or all impersonals in early texts, it is wise to include both *exp* and *pro* in your searches.
- Topicalization or stylistic fronting of quantifiers