Null Subjects in Child Wh-Questions*

Abstract

Is there a deep structural relationship between the Optional Infinitive (OI) and Null Subject (NS) stages? We will provide evidence to support tile suggestion of Wexler (1992, 1994 footnote 44) that nonfinite verbs in the Oi stage of early child Englisll grammatically license a null subject, a suggestion further developed in a theory of the O! stage presented in Wexler 1995. The evidence we shall display emerges from tile particular pattern of null subjects that exists in declarative senlences and wh-quesiions.