2.4.3. Null subjects in main clauses
In this section, we focus on subject omission in main clauses. In corpus data, it has been observed that there is a strong topicality effect on main clauses in LIS. This means that if a referent has already been introduced in the discourse and thus has become salient, it is likely that it is dropped in the following main clause (PRAGMATICS 4.2). For example, a signer is waiting for Anna in the hall and mentions her to a colleague. In this case, Anna becomes salient in the discourse and thus holds as discourse antecedent. The colleague may produce a main clause as the one shown below leaving the subject unexpressed, as subject argument (anna) can be retrieved through the previous context.
go_away
‘(Anna) left.’
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant Agreement No 693349.