Huang (1984) proposes that null object is a variable controlled by a null topic, unlike null subject which is a real null pronoun. This paper tries to verify this proposal by investigating the distribution of null object in Cantonese. It is found that while Huang’s proposal is able to explain the majority part of the distribution of null object, it is unable to give an explanation to several cases related to resultativity and indirect object which disallow null object. A possible explanation is given to account for these cases, which is related to feature checking and a modified version of Huang’s Generalized Control Rule.

Excerpt When one gets in touch with a new language, the first thing that catches his attention is probably the alphabet. The German alphabet consists of all the 26 letters from the English alphabet, together with 4 additional letters, namely die Umlaute ä, ö, ü and das scharfes s ß, which only exists in lowercase. […]

Introduction German and English are both Germanic languages; consequently, they share a lot of similarities in terms of the vocabularies. However, due to various historical reasons, the grammar of English has undergone a lot of changes since its divorce from High German. The accumulated result is the often subtle differences in the languages’ grammars, and […]