Difference between revisions of "Expletives"

Revision as of 07:55, 4 February 2010

The expletive "það" is sometimes not co-indexed with anything, as in weather expressions. This is identical to the treatment of expletive "it" in the English corpora for weather expressions like "it is raining". In these weather-like cases, "it"/"það" is not especially distinguished from its non-expletive counterpart, since it is not coindexed with any other expression in the clause.

Það er byggilegt á Íslandi (literally 'It is buildable in Iceland').

( (IP-MAT (NP-SBJ (PRO Það)
          (BEP er)
          (ADJP (ADJ byggilegt)
          (PP (P á) (NP (N Íslandi)))))

There is also an empty expletive version of this. This differs from the English corpora (this is a true difference between Icelandic and English syntax), in that the empty expletive can also sometimes *not* be coindexed with something else in the clause. This is the empty counterpart to weather-"it". (Of course, expletives will be coindexed with some other expression in impersonal cases or in the case of extraposition of subject-that-clauses.)

( (IP-MAT (NP-SBJ *exp*)
          (ADVP-TMP (ADV enn))
          (BEP er)
          (ADJP (ADJ byggilegt)
          (PP (P á) (NP (N Íslandi)))))

Also:

( (IP-MAT (CONJ en-en)
	  (NP-SBJ *exp*)
	  (NEG ekki-ekki)
	  (VBP Á-EIGA)
	  (NP-OB1 (N-NSAIC mál-mál)
		  (D-PNSN ÞAÐ-SÁ)
		  (CP-EOP (WNP-1 0)
			  (IP-INF (NP-OB1 *T*-1)
				  (TO að-að)
				  (VB-TA dæma-dæma)
				  (ADVP-LOC (ADV hér-hér))
				  (PP (P-D á-á)
				      (NP (N-NSDIC þingi-þing))))))