While null subjects have been extensively studied cross-linguistically, null objects have received considerably less attention. Different languages impose varying restrictions on object omission, which can be syntactic, semantic, lexical, or pragmatic. Unspecified object drop is widely attested, whereas omission of definite or anaphoric objects is much more restricted. However, it can still be found in typologically diverse languages, ranging from Asian radical pro-drop languages to languages like Portuguese and Finnish, which have agreement inflection but lack object agreement. Additionally, from a developmental perspective, there is an optionality period in the realization of objects during the early stages of language acquisition, even in languages with very restricted object drop. An effective theory of omitted arguments must identify the factors that restrict or favor object omission in a given language and explain the conditions that affect the requirement or optionality of object clitics.

Abstract submission

We invite abstract submissions for 20-minute talks (+10 min discussion) or posters of original, unpublished work. Abstract submissions to this workshop may focus on one or more of the following issues, among others: 

– Which syntactic, semantic, and discourse-pragmatic factors determine the identification and interpretation of null objects? 

– When are null objects optional or obligatory? 

– Are empty categories with pronominal (pro) features involved in the case of null objects? 

– Could there be a unified analysis of null objects cross-linguistically? 

– Are null subjects and null objects typologically correlated? 

– What insights does a developmental perspective on null objects offer? And a diachronic one? 

The language of the conference will be English. 

Submission guidelines

Prospective authors are invited to submit abstracts for an oral or poster presentation. Abstracts should be in English and anonymous. They should not exceed one page (A4 or letter size paper, 2.5cm or 1-inch margins on all sides, 12-point font), with one additional page for examples, tables, figures and references. The abstracts must be uploaded as PDF attachments through OpenReview. Submissions are limited to one individual and one joint abstract per author, or two joint abstracts per author. Upon submission, please indicate whether your work should be considered for an oral presentation or for a poster (or both).  

Publication

All authors who present their work at the conference will be invited to submit their paper for publication. The outcome of NOCroDeP2025 will be a collective book published by a high standing international publisher in the field. Papers for publication will be selected based on their contribution to specific themes of particular interest arising from the conference through a blind peer-review process.

Registration is now open!

Registration fees

Early bird (from May 20 to July 1st):

– Faculty: €180

– Students: €100

Regular (from July 2 to October 1st)

– Faculty: €230

– Students: €150

Fees include attendance to all the conference sessions, certificate of presentation (for speakers), certificate of attendance (for non-speakers and speakers), conference documentation, coffee breaks and reception on October 23, 2025.

Registration Deadline for authors

Registration deadline for authors is July 1, 2025. In case the registration is not done by July 1, the oral presentation or poster will not be included in the final conference program.  

Cancellation and refund policy

Cancellation deadline is September 8, 2025. After that day, registration fees will not be refunded.

Thursday, October 23

8:30 – 9:00	Registration
9:00 – 9:15	Opening remarks
9:15 – 10:15	Keynote talk: Being an object, nulll or overt, in L1 and L2 grammars: the interaction of telicity and referentiality in crosslinguistic variation, Ianthi Tsimpli
10:15 – 11:00	Coffee break
11:00 – 11:30	Exploring an Ellipsis Analysis of Definite Null Objects in (Spoken) French, Tessa Adam
11:30 – 12:00	Laura washes every day: herself or the dishes? Null objects and grooming verbs in English and Romanian, Adina Camelia Bleotu & Monica Alexandrina Irimia
12:00 – 12:30	Do Referentiality and Animacy Affect Null Object and Accusative Clitic Use in Romanian?, Adina Camelia Bleotu & Ekaterina Levina
12:30 – 13:00	Animacy and Null Objects in English, Raffaella Folli, Juliana Gerard, Heidi Harley, Balthazar Lauzon & Morgan Macleod
13:00 – 14:30	Lunch break
14:30 – 15:00	Are heritage speakers one step ahead? Comparing heritage speakers with speakers of two varieties of Portuguese in their comprehension of null object constructions, Esther Rinke, Daniel Weingärtner & Cristina Flores
15:00- 15:30	Overspecification of subjects and underspecification of objects: subject-object asymmetries in heritage Portuguese as a window into divergent diachronic pathways, Cristina Flores
15:30 – 16:00	Clitic omission in heritage, L2, and monolingual speakers of Italian, Andrea Calpe Alvarez, Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, Francesco Bäck Romano, Melania S. Masià & Marta Rivera Zurita
16:00 – 16:30	The development of null objects in multilingual children: evidence for absence of clitic omissions in French-Italian multilingual children, Laura D’Aurizio, Natascha Müller, Francesco Bäck Romano, Giada Falcone
16:30 – 17:00	Coffee break
17:00 – 17:30	Syntactic and semantic conditions on null objects in Santomean Portuguese, Rita Gonçalves & Ana Madeira
17:30 – 18:00	Lexical Constraints on Spanish and Portuguese Indefinite Object Drop, Carlos Martínez-García, Esther Rinke & Nelli Kerezova
18:00 – 18:30	Two types of null objects in German and Portuguese psych predicates, Niklas Wiskandt
18:30 – 19:00	Null Object Constructions in Tamil: Insights from Dravidian Comparison, Rajamathangi Shanmugasundaram
20:30	Conference dinner

Friday, October 24

8:30 – 9:00	Registration
9:00 – 10:00	Keynote talk: TBA, Maia Duguine
10:00 – 10:45	Coffee break
10:45 – 11:15	Null objects and coordinated wh-questions in Romanian: an experimental approach, Gabriela Bîlbîie
11:15 – 11:45	Anaphora Resolution in Machine Translation: An Explorative Study on the Translation of Null Objects from European Portuguese into German, Nelli Kerezova
11:45 – 12:15	Cross-Linguistic Influence and Structural Priming: The Processing of Null Objects in Spanish-English Bilinguals, Giuseppe Dario Benigno, Pedro Guijarro Fuentes, Estela García Alcaraz, Marta Rivera Zurita
12:15 – 12:45	Understanding null objects in L2 English: from acceptability to production, Sonja Mujcinovic, Qianting Yuan & Raquel Fernández Fuertes
12:45 – 14:30	Lunch break
14:30 – 15:00	On licensing null GOALs and SOURCEs: Intransitive motion verb constructions in French, Eric Engel
15:00 – 15:30	Mapping Null Objects in Peninsular Spanish: A Study of Linguistic Variation in the Basque Country and Navarra, Roxana Marica
15:30 – 16:00	Spanish Indefinite Argument Drop as NP-ellipsis, Carlos Martínez-García
16:00 – 16:30	Deriving Spanish nominalized infinitives from antipassive voice, Zi Huang
16:30 – 18:00	Coffee break / poster session Verb-driven Patterns of Object Omission in the History of Spanish: A Corpus-based Analysis, Philippa Adolf  Statistical evidence for null object licensing constraints in English, Vladimir Buskin  Object clitics and zero anaphora in Caribbean French: Changes of the referential paradigm through language contact with Creole, Amalia Canes-Nápoles & Sophie Repp The use of null objects across registers in Southern Kurdish in Iran, Zahra Farokhnejad Null objects in acquisition, not a universal option: A meta-analysis, Anna Gavarró & David Oliveros  Lost in Omission? Acquiring the Pragmatics of Null Objects in L2 English, Elena Gavruseva The role of register for null objects across languages, Nico Lehmann, Jozina Vander Klok, Elisabeth Verhoeven, Zahra Farokhnejad, Maryam Bahmani & Aria Adli  Syntactic and Semantic Constraints of Null Objects in European and American varieties of Spanish: Two Experimental Studies, Marco Losavio, Philippa Adolf & Albert Wall
18:00 – 18:15	Closing remarks

Scientific committee

Pilar Barbosa (Universidade do Minho)

Sonia Cyrino (Universidade Estadual de Campinas)

Maia Duguine (CNRS IKER)

Cristina Flores (Universidade do Minho)

Nelli Kerezova (Goethe Universität Frankfurt)

Maria Lobo (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

Ana Madeira (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

Carlos Martínez García (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

Gabriel Martínez Vera (Newcastle University)

Acrisio Pires (University of Michigan)

Esther Rinke (Goethe Universität Frankfurt)

Liliana Sánchez (University of Illinois Chicago)

Scott Schwenter (The Ohio State University)

Ianthi Tsimply (University of Cambridge)

Organizing committee

Pedro Guijarro Fuentes (chair)

Melania S. Masià (chair)

Maria del Mar Bassa Vanrell

Iria Bello Viruega

Estela Garcia Alcaraz

Conference venue

Null Objects from a Crosslinguistic and Developmental Perspective 2025 will take place at the Sa Riera building of the Universitat de les Illes Balears. The building is located in the city center, at Miquel dels Sants Oliver, 2.

Accommodation

Hotels recommended by the organization:

Hotel Jaume III ****

Hotel Palladium ****

Hotel Horizonte ***

Hotel Colón ***

Hotel Araxa ***

Hotel Abelay **

Hotel Abelux **

Hotel Born **