Chapter 63: Expletive subject in ‘seem’ constructions
1. Introduction⇫¶
In this chapter we ask whether there is an expletive subject in a ‘seem’ construction, as in English It seems (that) we have stayed long enough/ It looks like…/ It appears that it is going to rain. An expletive subject is a pronoun-like element in subject position that has no reference and that functions primarily as a placeholder. A ‘seem’ construction is a construction with a matrix verb denoting a propositional attitude ('seem', 'look like', 'resemble') and a complement clause that is its notional subject, as illustrated in (1):
The experiencer of the attitude may be absent as in (1), or present as an object or oblique (It seems to me that...), as shown in ex. (2):
Not all languages have a ‘seem’ construction in the narrow sense intended in this chapter, this construction apparently being more typical of European (standard) languages. Some APiCS languages only have experiencer-subject propositional attitude constructions like 'I think that...', or they may use adverbs meaning ‘apparently, seemingly’ (see §2.3 below).
In the context of the discussion of “pro-drop languages”, the question of expletive subjects has played an important role: pro-drop languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian) have been claimed not to show expletive subject constructions, whereas the opposite holds for non-pro-drop languages (e.g. English and Swedish; e.g. Roberts 1997). Under this assumption, as most APiCS languages show obligatory pronominal subjects (see Chapter 62) and are therefore considered non-pro-drop languages, one would expect these languages to also show expletive subjects in a ‘seem’ construction. But as the data show, the picture is more complex (as discussed in §3; see also Chapter 64 on expletive subjects in existential constructions).
2. The values⇫¶
In this feature, we distinguish three feature values. Value 1 and 2 may co-occur in the same language when it has two different ‘seem’ constructions, or when the expletive subject is optional.
| excl | shrd | all | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | An expletive subject is used | 20 | 8 | 28 |
 | An expletive subject is not used | 15 | 8 | 23 |
 | 'There is no 'seem' construction | 26 | 0 | 26 |
| Representation: | 69 | |||
2.1. Expletive subjects
Languages which exclusively show an expletive subject construction (value 1) are nearly all English-based creoles. Here, the English words (be) like or look like are often the source for the creole 'seem' verbs, as in ex. (3-4). Most often the third person singular pronoun functions as the expletive subject. In Nigerian Pidgin (ex. 3), the third person singular dependent subject pronoun is always used in its shortened form ì rather than in its full form ìm (Faraclas 2013).
Casamancese Creole is the only Portuguese-based creole which shows an expletive subject in the 'seem' construction as its only option (see ex. 2 above), whereas in Papiá Kristang and Principense the expletive subject is optional (i.e. they also have value 2).
Singapore Bazaar Malay is the only language with a non-European base which requires an expletive subject, the demonstrative ini.
2.2. No expletive subject
23 languages do not use any expletive subject (value 2). For 15 of them, this construction is the only option. These include the Ibero-Romance-based creoles Papiamentu, Palenquero, the Cape Verdean Creole varieties, Guinea-Bissau Kriyol, Korlai, and Cavite Chabacano.
There are also three English-based creoles which lack an expletive subject: Bislama, Tok Pisin, and Hawai‘i Creole. Singlish and Vincentian Creole show both constructions with and without the expletive subject. The interesting cases are Tok Pisin, Hawai‘i Creole and Vincentian, which are clear non-pro-drop languages, but do not require an expletive subject here (see discussion in §3 and Chapter 62).
As for the French-based creoles, many of them show both construction types, too:
Reunion Creole is the only French-based creole which never uses an expletive subject.
2.3. No ‘seem’ construction
Roughly a third of the APiCS languages do not have a ‘seem’ construction in the narrow sense of our definition (value 3). Some of these languages use experiencer-subject propositional attitude verbs like 'I think that...', e.g.:
Lingala, Sango, Fanakalo, Ambon Malay, Chinese Russian Pidgin and Tayo show the same construction type. Other languages with value 3 use adverbs meaning ‘apparently, seemingly’. These adverbs may have lexicalized from verbal source constructions in the European base languages, e.g. parɛs ‘apparently’ in Diu Indo-Portuguese goes back to Portuguese parece ‘it seems’, whereas laik in Creolese goes back to English (it looks) like. The fact that these lexical items are no longer combinable with negation or TAM markers is evidence that they are not verbal elements anymore in the creole languages. Martinican Creole asiparé 'apparently' even goes back to a phrasal expression in French, à ce qu'il paraît ‘as it seems’ (lit. ‘to that which it seems’).
3. Discussion⇫¶
Two aspects are of interest when looking at the map: (i) What is the relation between the ‘seem’ construction in the creole and its (European) base language? (ii) Does the pro-drop parameter make the right predictions for this feature?
For all English- and French-based creoles with value 2 (either exclusively or shared: e.g. Vincentian Creole, Tok Pisin, Hawai'i Creole, Haitian Creole, Louisiana Creole, Mauritian Creole), there is a mismatch between the expletive subject construction in the base languages English and French (it seems that/ il semble que) and the non-use of an expletive subject in the corresponding creole languages. The same holds the other way round for Portuguese- and Spanish-based creoles. Here the base languages lack expletives (Ø parece), and one might expect the corresponding creoles to show the same value. But Principense, Papiá Kristang, and Casamancese Creole have expletive subjects (the latter exclusively).
Can the pro-drop parameter then make the right predictions here? As can be seen from Chapter 62, the majority of the APiCS languages have obligatory pronoun words in subject position, with a clear areal pattern: in the Atlantic all languages have obligatory subject pronoun words, in the Indian Ocean nearly all languages allow for optional pronouns, while in Australia and the Pacific again the obligatory pattern prevails. One would expect that languages with an obligatory subject pronoun word also have an obligatory expletive pronoun in the ‘seem’ construction, and vice versa. But the APiCS data clearly contradict this simplistic picture. Many languages with value 2 are non-pro-drop languages, i.e. have obligatory subject pronouns. The English-based creoles Tok Pisin, Hawai‘i Creole and Vincentian Creole were already mentioned earlier. But here we also find the Portuguese-based creoles of the Cape Verde Islands, Guinea-Bissau Kriyol, Palenquero, Juba Arabic and Kinubi. Conversely, five languages in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia (Mauritian and Seychelles Creole, Singlish, Singapore Bazaar Malay, Papiá Kristang) allow expletive subjects but can drop their subject pronouns (see Chapter 62).