The extended projection principle (EPP) is a

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

hypothesis about subjects. It was proposed by

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

as an addendum to the

projection principle In linguistics, the projection principle is a stipulation proposed by Noam Chomsky as part of the phrase structure component of generative-transformational grammar. The projection principle is used in the derivation of phrases under the auspices ...

. The basic idea of the EPP is that clauses must contain a

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...

determiner phrase In linguistics, a determiner phrase (DP) is a type of phrase headed by a determiner such as ''many''. Controversially, many approaches, take a phrase like ''not very many apples'' to be a DP, headed, in this case, by the determiner ''many''. This is ...

in the subject position (i.e. in the specifier of a

tense phrase In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase-structure grammar and a theory of syntactic category formation that was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1970Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on Nominalization. In: R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum (eds.) ...

inflectional phrase In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase-structure grammar and a theory of syntactic category formation that was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1970Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on Nominalization. In: R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum (eds.) ...

or in the specifier of a

verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''quic ...

in languages in which subjects don't

raise Raise may refer to: Music *''Raise!'', the name of a 1981 album by Earth, Wind, and Fire * '' Raise'' (album), the name of a 1991 album by Swervedriver Place names * Raise, Cumbria, England * Raise (Lake District), the name of the 12th highe ...

to TP/IP, e.g.

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

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Most verbs require meaningful subjects—for example, "kick" in "Tom kicked the ball" takes the subject "Tom". However, other verbs do not require (and in fact, do not permit) meaningful subjects—for example, one can say "it rains" but not "the sky rains". The EPP states that regardless of whether the main predicate assigns a meaningful

theta role In generative grammar, a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb ''put'' requires three a ...

to a subject, a subject must be present syntactically. As a result, verbs that do not assign external theta roles will appear with subjects that are either

dummy pronoun A dummy pronoun is a deictic pronoun that fulfills a syntactical requirement without providing a contextually explicit meaning of its referent. As such, it is an example of exophora. Dummy pronouns are used in many Germanic languages, includ ...

s (e.g. expletive "it," "there"), or ones which have been moved into subject position from a lower position (e.g., subject of an embedded clause after the verbs, like ''seem'', ''appear'' etc. ). Examples proposed to be the result of expletive subject insertion in accordance with the EPP: #It seemed that John would never calm down. #It ( rains / snows / hails / etc. ) frequently in Quebec. #There seems to be a problem with the radiator. Notice that in all of these the overt subject has no ''referential'' reading. In languages that allow

pro-drop A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...

(such as Spanish or Italian), the empty category ''pro'' (not to be confused with Big

PRO Pro is an abbreviation meaning "professional". Pro, PRO or variants thereof may also refer to: People * Miguel Pro (1891–1927), Mexican priest * Pro Hart (1928–2006), Australian painter * Mlungisi Mdluli (born 1980), South African retired f ...

) can fulfill the requirement of the EPP. McCloskey (1996) proposed that there is one group of languages that lacks the EPP: the VSO languages (like Irish), which appear not only to lack expletives, but also to lack movement operations triggered by the EPP. The Czech language, in addition to being a pro-drop language, has a number of sentential structures which lack subject at all: * Prší. (It rains). * Připozdívá se (It's getting late.) * Došlo k výbuchu. (An explosion occurred.) * Zželelo se jim ho. (They took pity on him.)

References

{{Reflist Grammar Noam Chomsky

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See also

References