Developing pro-drop: the case of Cimbrian

The syntax of Cimbrian, a Germanic heritage language, is at a peculiar developmental stage: on the one hand it has lost the V2 linear restriction, but still maintains both pronominal subject inversion and a residual root-embedded word order asymmetry; on the other, it is characterized by both ‘free’ subject inversion (VP DP) and the systematic violation of the ‘that-trace’ filter, but does not allow null subjects. This specific mixture of both V2- and pro-drop properties gives us an opportunity to revisit the traditional assumption that Germanic V2 is incompatible with full pro-drop. In this work, we propose that the development of pro-drop crucially depends on the loss of V-to-Fin movement and, consequently, on the lowering of structural subject agreement within TP so that the whole complex process of feature sharing (KEEP, SHARE, DONATE) between C and I is restructured, changing from a C-dominant system to an I-dominant system.