Argument drop and the Empty Left Edge Condition (ELEC) Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson, Lund University Joan Maling, Brandeis University Argument drop is commonly subject to the Empty Left Edge Condition, ELEC, requiring that the left edge of the clause not be spelled out. ELEC can be explained in terms of minimality, as an intervention effect (blocking context-linking of the null-argument). We argue that sensitivity to this effect is the most important ‘pro drop parametric’ factor and that there are no inherent or lexical differences between ‘different types’ of null-arguments. However, we also present striking evidence from Icelandic that emptiness conditions of this sort are operative in PF, a conclusion that suggests that much of ‘syntax’ in the traditional sense is actually morphosyntax or ‘PF syntax’, invisible to the semantic interface. Keywords: argument drop, context-linking, intervention, null-arguments, object drop, pro drop, topic drop, topic- linking Contents: 1. Introduction 2. A uniform approach to null-arguments 3. Germanic argument drop and the ELEC 4. More cases of left edge sensitive argument drop 5. The emptiness conditions are operative in PF 6. Concluding remarks 1. Introduction * Argument drop is subject to clause-external restrictions and often also to clause-internal ones. The best known type of clause-internal restrictions is Agr-linking, illustrated in (1) for Italian subject drop and in (2) for object drop in Pashto (modelled on C.-T. J. Huang 1984:536): 1 (1) a. Parlo islandese. speak.1SG Icelandic b. Parli islandese. speak.2SG Icelandic * Parts of this work have been presented at several occasions: Workshop on Null Subjects and Parametric Variation, Reykjavík, June 2003, Grammatik i fokus (GIF 20), Lund, February 2006, IGG XXXII, Florence, March 2006, Workshop on Partial Pro-drop Languages, Cambridge, June 2006. We thank the organizers of these events for their hospitality and the audiences for welcome comments. For discussions and other help, we would also like to specially thank … Se also footnotes 22 and 29. 1 We are adopting the notions ‘linked’ and ‘unlinked’ from Deal (2005). 1