Expletives and speaker-related meaning

Abstract

In our paper, we investigate a set of pronominal forms that have lost their referential meaning and might at first sight be analyzed as expletives. First, we discuss the case of Finnish, which, though a pro-drop language, displays an element \textit{sitä} with expletive function; and the case of Dominican Spanish, another pro-drop language which seems to have an expletive \textit{ello} but in which, unlike Finnish, the expletive conveys a speaker-related meaning. In addition, we also examine the case of Vietnamese, a radical pro-drop language which also seems to deploy an expletive \textit{nó} with discourse value, and the case of the Flemish element \textit{tet}, which has lost its referential value and also has a discourse function. From these data it emerges that independently of the satisfaction of formal EPP-requirements, some languages can employ expletive or expletive-like elements for discourse-related reasons in those contexts where regular expletives are required in languages like English. The data discussed here lead to a more complex picture of the nature of expletives and their function in the grammar