Re: Pro-drop was RE: Conlang collaboration

On Sunday 16 February 2003 11:20 am, Tristan wrote:
> Dan Sulani wrote:
> > What exactly is meant by "pro-drop"?
>
> A tendency to drop unnecessary subject pronouns that are implied in
> inflexions on the vowel.
>
> In a hypothetical conlang: -im 1st p. sing. pres, -ew 1st p. pl pres,
> -y 2nd p. sing. pres, -ies 2nd p. pl pres, -ith 3rd p. pl pres else as
> english*:
>
> In 'I killim him', the I is implied by the -im, so it could be 'Killim
> him'. In 'You killy him', the You(sing) is implied  by the -ea, so it could
> be 'Killy him'
> In 'We killew him', the we is implied in the -ew, so it could be 'Killew
> him'.
>
> And so on. (No, I'm not murderous in real life.)
>
> *The name of this conlang is A Hyphothetical Conlang and is very nice
> for inflected examples when you only speak English.
>

Why, though, isn't germanic pro-drop? 'kills him' would be impossible with any
other pronoun apart from 'he', and German is even less ambiguous.  All you'd
need pronouns for would be 'wir' and 'sie'(3rd pl/2nd sing, not 3rd sing).
Why aren't they pro drop?

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