Null Expletives in Malay

• Published in: GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies Vol. 20; no. 2; pp. 224 - 243
• Main Author: Mustaffa, Amir Rashad
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bangi Nur Hafizah Abu Bakar 01.05.2020
• Subjects: Chomsky, Noam; Clitics; Digital archives; Existential constructions; Expletives; Extended projection principle; Grammatical subject; Malay language; Syntactic structures

Malay is not known to have expletives due to their absence in the grammar, but this does not necessarily entail that expletives do not exist altogether. Gaps are observed in constructions with positions in which one would expect an expletive in a strictly non-pro-drop language such as English, hence...