The feature geometry of generic inclusive null DPs in Hungarian 167
1.1 The four major types of Null Subject Languages
Any human language that obeys the Null Subject Parameter (Jaeggli & Safir 1989) is
classified as a Null Subject Language (NSL):
(1) Null subjects are permitted in all and only languages with morphologically
uniform inflectional paradigms. (Jaeggli & Safir 1989: 29)
A language is said to be morphologically uniform if its lexical items are morphologi-
cally complex or if none of its forms is morphologically complex.
Holmberg (2005, 2010 ) distinguishes three kinds of null subject:
(2) (i) expletive null subject;
(ii) referential null subject;
(iii) generic null subject.
Depending on the sorts of null subject they allow, Null Subject Languages (NSLs) are
further divided by Roberts & Holmberg (2010: 12), as follows:
(3) Type 1 Expletive null subject languages (German, Dutch);
Type 2 Partial null subject languages (Finnish, Russian);
Type 3 Consistent null subject languages (Italian, Greek);
Type 4 Radical null subject languages (Chinese, Indonesian).
Among Type 1 Expletive NSLs, some allow expletive null subjects only in impersonal
passive constructions (German, Dutch), others allow them also in meteorological sen-
tences (Icelandic, Yiddish):
(4) Gestern wurde ____ getanzt.
yesterday was expl danced
‘There was dancing yesterday.’
(German, Roberts & Holmberg 2010: 8)
(5) ____ Rigndi.
expl rained
‘It rained.’
(Icelandic, Roberts & Holmberg 2010: 8)
In Type 2 Partial NSLs 3sg generic inclusive subjects must always be null, i.e. proGN,
as in (6), but 3sg referential subjects can only be null if they have a clearly identifiable
antecedent in a higher clause, (7)–(8):
(6) Tässä proGN istuu mukavasti.
here one sits comfortably
‘One can sit comfortably here.’
(7) Hän/*pro istuu mukavasti tässä.
he/(one) sits comfortably here
‘He sits comfortably here.’
(Finnish, Holmberg 2010: 204–211)