@article{article_1603473, title={A Phase-Based Analysis of Silent Arguments in Turkish}, journal={Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi}, volume={24}, pages={1523–1538}, year={2025}, DOI={10.21547/jss.1603473}, author={Akal, Taylan}, keywords={null argument, ellipsis, silent pro}, abstract={The present study analyzes null (silent) argument phenomenon in Turkish through intra-sentential structures adopting a phase-based approach. The structures containing null arguments in Turkish may cause different interpretations as strict and sloppy readings. In the related cross-linguistic literature, this variability is associated with two structural analyses of the phenomenon. While strict reading is considered to be an indication of “silent pro”, the availability of sloppy reading is considered to be an indication of “ellipsis”. Based on the mentioned interpretations, the depictions of the structures with null arguments in Turkish are discussed in previous studies. Among those, Şener and Takahashi (2010) and Kornfilt (2024) comprise the major axis of the present work. The former one states that the null argument phenomenon in Turkish can be explained via scrambling property of Turkish due to the related cross-linguistic literature proposing that argument ellipsis is a major property of scrambling languages. Besides agreeing with some of their observations, Kornfilt (2024) discusses some other outcomes obtained by Şener and Takahashi (2010) by indicating that the derived interpretations may not be certain and thus further study is needed to explain null arguments in Turkish. At this point, the present study aims at developing the argument by examining null arguments in Turkish intra-sentential constructions adopting Sakamoto (2016)’s phase-based approach. As a result, it has been observed that phase-based analysis is capable of explaining the mechanism behind the null argument phenomenon in Turkish, and has the potential for further examination.}, number={3}, publisher={Gaziantep University}