Kim Dongseok. 1998. Distribution and Licensing of Null Subjects. Studies in Modern Grammar 14, 85-105. The primary aim of this paper is to examine the distribution and the status of null subjects, and to reduce the pro-drop parameter to the feature checking mechanism of the minimalist program presented in Chomsky(1993, 1995). We have demonstrated that if there is a topic, it becomes the first candidate to be the antecedent of the null argument; otherwise the null argument is controlled by a c-commanding argument. The difference between Italian and Korean in the possibility of null arguments getting their reference from the discourse context is explained by the availability of the D-morpheme proposed in Moon(1989). And the pro-drop parameter is analysed in terms of feature checking under the hypothesis that the EPP-feature is weak in pro-drop languages, whereas it is strong in non-pro-drop languages.

• Dong Seok Kim