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In null subject languages, the Grammatical Person of the subject is generally reflected by the Inflection of the Verb . This is not always the case; for example, Chinese and Japanese verbs do not inflect for person. In certain null subject languages, though an explicit subject is not necessary to form a grammatically correct sentence, in most cases one may be stated in order to emphasize its importance, but some sentences do not allow a subject and in some other cases an explicit subject would sound awkward or unnatural. The following examples come from Portuguese :
Many languages that are null subject at the sentence level nevertheless require an expressed Topic in order for sentences to make sense. In Japanese, for instance, it is possible to start a sentence with a topic marked by the particle ''wa'', and in subsequent sentences the topic can be left understood, until another one is explicitly introduced. For example, in the second sentence below, the subject ("we") is not expressed again but left implicit: Other languages (sometimes called non-null subject languages) require each sentence to include a subject — this is the case for most Germanic Languages , such as English and German . Even in these languages it is sometimes possible to omit the subject, although contextual clues are usually necessary. :"''Bumped into George this morning.''" (I) :"''Agreed to have a snifter to catch up on old times.''" (We) :"''Told me what the two of you had been up to.''" (He) :"''Went down to Brighton for the weekend?''" (You) Examples of null subject languages are Latin , most Romance Languages (including Portuguese , Spanish , Italian , and Romanian , but not French ), Greek , Arabic , Hebrew , Chinese , Japanese , Persian , Polish , Tamil , Slovenian and Turkish . SEE ALSO |
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