We claim in this paper that null arguments are a pronoun linked to a topic in their minimal CP domain. This claim is basically a unification of the following three existing proposals accounting for null argument phenomena: flexible null topic analysis that null arguments are bound by a flexible topic, pro analysis that they are a pronoun, and a proposal that pronouns are linked to CP edge. We show that this unified analysis nicely deals with distribution and interpretation of null arguments in Korean.

This paper assesses the last two-decade studies of null arguments in East Asian languages. Unlike the predecessors, these studies have concentrated lopsidedly on the distribution of null arguments in VP/TP ellipsis or anaphora contexts, thus hampering the proper identification of null arguments in these languages. Grounded on the observation that null arguments cannot be used as indefinites in radically pro-drop languages (Holmberg 2016), we go on to note that in non-ellipsis or non-anaphora contexts, null arguments in East Asian languages are either unique weak or anaphoric strong definites. Particularly, the latter use of null arguments sheds new lights on accounting for the long-standing puzzles such as Huang’s (1984) paradigm in Mandarin Chinese and Abe’s (2009, 2014) paradigm in Japanese, on top of the sundry distributions of null arguments in Korean. We suggest that null arguments in VP/TP ellipsis or anaphora contexts in East Asian languages can receive a proper analysis based on their syntactic identity in non-ellipsis or non-anaphora contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to look into pro analysis in which null argument is identified as zero pronoun (namely, pro) for the Korean null argument constructions. It has been argued that the pro analysis is superior to the ellipsis analysis in which null argument is identified as empty NP. However, this paper points out that there still seem to be potential problems with the pro analysis. It is proven that the validity of continuation test which is provided as a test for the pro analysis is questionable in respects of theory and empiricism. Furthermore, it is shown in this paper that while under the pro analysis only sloppy like identity interpretation is yielded out in the Korean null argument constructions, in fact genuine sloppy identity interpretation is yielded out in them. This means that the ellipsis analysis must be still useful even though the pro analysis is more pervasive in explaining the Korean null argument constructions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of null arguments in Korean. Even though many studies have been done to identify the null arguments, there seem to be some problems yet to be resolved in identifying them. The pro analysis of Ahn & Cho (2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012) is likely to have wider explanative power than the DP ellipsis analysis because of the extensive uses of pro in Korean. Nevertheless, it is argued in this paper that the DP ellipsis analysis may be still applicable to constructions in which null arguments related to reflexives are missing.

The issue of the nature of the null arguments in Korean lies in whether the null arguments can be elided or not. Ahn & Cho (2011a.b.), using a pragmatic interpretation such as explicature, argue that pro analysis is superior to the DP ellipsis analysis. However, this paper points out that there still seems to be problems with the pro analysis. In DP ellipsis analysis, only two interpretations, strict identity interpretation and sloppy identity interpretation, can be produced but,

The purpose of this paper is to reconfirm that the null arguments (the null subject and null object) in Korean should be identified as empty NPs, not as pro under Kim`s (1991) argument ellipsis analysis, not under Huang`s (1984, 1987) null-topic variable analysis, Otani and Whitman`s (1991) VP ellipsis Analysis, and Moon`s (2010) pro analysis. To begin with, the merits and drawbacks of the three analyses except Kim`s analysis are examined: especially we focus on Moon`s analysis because she claims that the null arguments should be identified as pro in Korean unlike the argument in the analysis we adopt. According to the argument ellipsis analysis we take, the null NPs in the object position must be empty NPs with no featural content. Using the analysis, we attempts to solve the problems we find in the three analyses. Furthermore, in this paper we apply Kim`s analysis to the null NPs in the subject position and argue that they, too, should be treated as empty NPs because the property of these NPs is the same as that of the NPs the object position in that they can allow sloppy identity readings and strict identity readings. As a result, we reached that the null arguments in Korean must be empty NPs, contra Moon`s analysis.