Heycock, Caroline and Doron, Edit (2003) Categorical Subjects. Gengo Kenkyu 123:95-135.
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In this paper we analyse constructions in Japanese and Modern Hebrew in which an initial nominative phrase is followed by what appears to be a complete sentence, rather than a predicate with an open position. We argue that these nominatives, which we term "Broad Subjects" (also referred to as "multiple nominatives" or "Major Subjects" in the literature on Japanese) are interpreted by virtue of abstraction over a position within the clause, which is occupied syntactically by a pronoun (overt in Hebrew, null in Japanese). Hence this construction does not involve movement of the Broad Subject itself. We further argue that Broad Subjects are necessarily interpreted as the subjects of Categorical Sentences, as understood in Ladusaw's (1994) reinterpretation of Kuroda's thetic/categorical distinction.