Subjectless as-parenthetical Constructions in English: A Corpus-based Approach

• Published in: 언어학, 29(4) pp. 93 - 112
• Main Authors: 박슬기, 김종복
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 대한언어학회 01.12.2021
• Subjects: 언어학
• ISSN: 1225-7141; 2671-6283
• DOI: 10.24303/lakdoi.2021.29.4.93

As-parenthetical constructions usually include either a sentential or predicate gap, but they can also have a subject gap. In this paper, we first investigate the authentic uses of subjectless as-parenthetical clauses, referring to the extracted corpus data. One of the key issues that emerges from the corpus data is that the subjectless as-clause is missing an expletive subject gap as well as a clausal complement gap. The subject gap is construed as a proposition containing a proper predicate for the antecedent. Our corpus findings show that the predicate type in subjectless as-clauses determines whether the expletive subject it is elided optionally or obligatorily. Based on the observed properties, we suggest that subjectless as-parenthetical constructions are base-generated rather than derived from deletion operations. Our corpus-based view can account for the idiosyncratic properties of subjectless as-parenthetical constructions in a streamlined manner. KCI Citation Count: 0