ABSTRACT
Some studies adopt a wide perspective and derive both the null subject and the root infinitive phenomena from a more primitive property of the child's grammar, the possibility of truncating the structure at different levels of representation. This chapter examines French data in the light of such proposals. In French, null subjects are robustly attested with unquestionably finite verbs throughout the root infinitive stage, and that they cannot be regarded as a marginal phenomenon in comparison with subject drop in matrix infinitival clauses. Null subjects of root infinitives are generally treated on a par with the adult null subject of embedded clauses, PRO. The chapter provides an overview of the figures reported in the literature, and discusses some of the proposals which claim the existence of a direct structural relationship between subject drop and the availability of root infinitives. It concentrates on the clausal truncation approach, and introduces the data and comments on the results.
