A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language in which 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 intricate. The phenomenon of "pronoun-dropping" is part of the larger topic of zero or null anaphora. The connection between pro-drop languages and null anaphora relates to the fact that a dropped pronoun has referential properties, and so is crucially not a null dummy pronoun. Pro-drop is a problem when translating to a non-pro-drop language such as English, which requires the pronoun to be added, especially noticeable in machine translation. It can also contribute to transfer errors in language learning. An areal feature of some European languages is that pronoun dropping is not, or seldom, possible (see Standard Average European); this is the case for English, French, German, and Emilian, among others. In contrast, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese, Slavic languages, Uralic languages, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Kra-Dai languages, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese exhibit frequent pro-drop features. Some languages, such as Greek and Hindi also exhibit pro-drop in any argument.
Usage of term In Noam Chomsky's "Lectures on Government and Binding", the term is used for a cluster of properties of which "null subject" was one (for the occurrence of pro as a predicate rather than a subject in sentences with the copula see Moro 1997). Thus, a one-way correlation was suggested between inflectional agreement (AGR) and empty pronouns on the one hand and between no agreement and overt pronouns, on the other. In the classical version, languages which not only lack agreement morphology but also allow extensive dropping of pronouns—such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese—are not included, as is made clear in a footnote: "The principle suggested is fairly general, but does not apply to such languages as Japanese in which pronouns can be missing much more freely." (Chomsky 1981:284, fn 47). The term pro-drop is also used in other frameworks in generative grammar, such as in lexical functional grammar (LFG), but in a more general sense: "Pro-drop is a widespread linguistic phenomenon in which, under certain conditions, a structural NP may be unexpressed, giving rise to a pronominal interpretation." (Bresnan 1982:384). The empty category assumed (under government and binding theory) to be present in the vacant subject position left by pro-dropping is known as pro, or as "little pro" (to distinguish it from "big PRO", an empty category associated with non-finite verb phrases).
Cross-linguistic variation It has been observed that pro-drop languages are those with either rich inflection for person and number (Persian, Polish, Czech, Portuguese, etc.) or no such inflection at all (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.), but languages that are intermediate (English, French) are non-pro-drop. While the mechanism by which overt pronouns are more "useful" in English than in Japanese is obscure, and there are exceptions to this observation, it still seems to have considerable descriptive validity. As Huang puts it, "Pro-drop is licensed to occur either where a language has full agreement, or where a language has no agreement, but not where a language has impoverished partial agreement." In pro-drop languages with a highly inflected verbal morphology, the expression of the subject pronoun is considered unnecessary because the verbal inflection indicates the person and number of the subject, thus the referent of the null subject can be inferred from the grammatical inflection on the verb. Barbosa defines these typological patterns as null-subject languages (NSL), expressing that the term itself, pro-drop, can be subcategorized into categories such as: topic (discourse) pro-drop, partial NSL (partial pro-drop) and consistent NSL (full pro-drop).
Topic pro-drop languages In everyday speech there are instances when who or what is being referred to — namely, the topic of the sentence — can be inferred from context. Languages which permit the pronoun to be inferred from contextual information are called topic-drop (also known as discourse pro-drop) languages: thus, topic pro-drop languages allow referential pronouns to be omitted, or be phonologically null. (In contrast, languages that lack topic pro-drop as a mechanism would still require the pronoun.) These dropped pronouns can be inferred from previous discourse, from the context of the conversation, or generally shared knowledge. Among major languages, some which might be called topic pro-drop languages are Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin. Topic prominent languages like Korean, Mandarin and Japanese have structures which focus more on topics and comments as opposed to English, a subject-prominent language. It is this topic-first nature that enables the inference of omitted pronouns from discourse.
Korean The following example from Jung (2004:719) Korean shows the omission of both pronouns in the subject and object position.
Japanese Consider the following examples from Japanese:
The words in parentheses and boldface in the English translations (it in the first line; I, you, and it in the second) appear nowhere in the Japanese sentences but are understood from context. If nouns or pronouns were supplied, the resulting sentences would be grammatically correct but sound unnatural. Learners of Japanese as a second language, especially those whose first language is non-pro-drop like English or French, often supply personal pronouns where they are pragmatically inferable, an example of language transfer.
Mandarin The above-mentioned examples from Japanese are readily rendered into Mandarin:
Unlike in Japanese, the inclusion of the dropped pronouns does not make the sentence sound unnatural.
Vietnamese Vietnamese can naturally omit subjects, especially in universally casual clauses, proverbs and idioms:
Partial pro-drop languages
Languages with partial pro-drop have both agreement and referential null subjects that are restricted with respect to their distribution. The partial null-subject languages include most Balto-Slavic languages, which allow for the deletion of the subject pronoun. Hungarian allows deletion of both the subject and object pronouns.
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