Expletives, Subjects, and Topics in Finnish
Anders R Holmberg, Urpo Nikanne · 2002
Abstract Finnish exhibits an unusual combination of properties relating to ‘the subject’: (a) it is a null-subject language, (b) it has obligatory expletives, (c) it is topic-prominent in the sense that the external argument need not be the subject but can be any category which can serve as the topic of the sentence. The Finnish facts to be dis cussed here therefore have consequences for the formulation of parameters concerning null subjects and the EPP, among other things.