Referential Null Subjects in Germanic Languages – an Overview

Based on the assumption that there are no referential null subjects in the Germanic V2-languages, it has been claimed that the V2-property is universally in-compatible with referential null subjects. However, in this paper it is demonstrated that referential null subjects occur in several Old Germanic languages as well as in a number of non-standard Modern Germanic vernaculars, all of them V2-languages. Hence the assumed connection between V2-word order and non-present referential null subjects can be refuted. It is also shown that the referential null subjects in the two groups of languages (Old and Modern) display different syntactic properties, in several respects. Hence it is plausible that the referential null subjects in the two language groups belong to typologically different types, which in turn leads to the conclusion that the referential null subjects in the modern vernaculars are syntactic innovations, rather than remnants of an archaic syntactic system. 1. Introduction