Editing Pro-drop language (section)

===English===
{{Anchor|You understood}}
English is not a pro-drop language, but subject pronouns are almost always dropped in imperative sentences (e.g., ''Come here!'' ''Do tell!'' ''Eat your vegetables!''), with the subject "you" understood or communicated non-verbally.<ref>Geoffrey K. Pullum, Rodney Huddleston, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', 2005, {{isbn|1139643800}}, p. 170</ref>

In informal speech, the pronominal subject is sometimes dropped. The [[Ellipsis (linguistics)|ellipsis]] has been called "conversational deletion" and "left-edge deletion",<ref>{{cite web|first=Katy|last=Waldman|title=Why Do We Delete the Initial Pronoun From Our Sentences? Glad You Asked|work=Slate|url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/05/all-your-questions-about-pronoun-deletion-and-the-inexorable-death-of-the-universe-answered.html|date=May 4, 2016}}</ref><ref>Randolph H. Thrasher, ''Shouldn't ignore these strings: A study of conversational deletion'', PhD dissertation, 1974, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (not seen)</ref><ref>Randolph H. Thrasher, "One way to say more by saying less: A study of so-called subjectless sentences", 1977, Kwansei Gakuin University Monograph Series '''11''' Tokyo: Eihosha (not seen)</ref> and is common in informal spoken English as well as certain [[linguistic register|registers]] of written English, notably diaries.<ref>Andrew Weir, "Left-edge deletion in English and subject omission in diaries", ''English Language & Linguistics'' '''16''':1:105-129 (March 2012) {{doi|10.1017/S136067431100030X}}</ref> Most commonly, it is the first person singular subject which is dropped.<ref>Susanne Wagner, "Never saw one – first-person null subjects in spoken English", ''English Language and Linguistics'' '''22''':1:1-34 (March 2018)</ref>

Some other words, especially [[copula (linguistics)|copulas]] and [[Auxiliary verb|auxiliaries]], can also be dropped.

*''<nowiki>[Have you]</nowiki> ever been there?''
*''<nowiki>[I'm]</nowiki> going shopping. <nowiki>[Do you]</nowiki> want to come?''
*''[I] haven't been there yet. [I'm] going later.''
*Seen on signs: ''<nowiki>[I am/We are]</nowiki> out to lunch; <nowiki>[I/we shall be]</nowiki> back at 1:00 [P.M].''
*''What do you think <nowiki>[of it]</nowiki>?'' – ''I like <nowiki>[it]</nowiki>!'' (the latter only in some dialects and registers)
*''[Do you] want a piece of cake?''
*''[You] are not!'' – ''[I] am too!'' This pattern is also common with other tenses (e.g., ''were'', ''will'') and verbs (e.g., ''do/did'', ''have/had'').

In speech, when pronouns are not dropped, they are more often reduced than other words in an utterance.

Relative pronouns, provided they are not the subject, are often dropped in short restrictive clauses: ''That's the man [whom] I saw.''

The dropping of pronouns is generally restricted to very informal speech and certain fixed expressions, and the rules for their use are complex and vary among dialects and registers. A noted instance was the "lived the dream" section of [[George H. W. Bush]]'s speech at the [[1988 Republican National Convention]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1988/oct/27/insider-baseball/|title=Insider Baseball|last=Didion|first=Joan|date=27 October 1988|journal=[[The New York Review of Books]]|access-date=22 July 2015|quote=as Bush, or [[Peggy Noonan]], had put it in the celebrated no-subject-pronoun cadences of the "lived the dream" acceptance speech.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Greenfield|first=Jeff|date=September 2008|title=Accepting the Inevitable: What McCain can learn from the acceptance speeches of Reagan, Bush, and Gore|journal=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]|page=2|quote=Note how, as he tells his story, the pronouns drop out, underscoring the idea that this was more a conversation than a speech|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2008/09/accepting_the_inevitable.2.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://lelandq.wordpress.com/2006/12/21/when-the-going-gets-tough/|title=When the Going Gets Tough |last=Winant|first=Gabriel|date=21 December 2006|work=Leland Quarterly|quote=Bush projects an image as a forthright Westerner who has no truck with fancy language or personal pronouns.|access-date=23 July 2015}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=Those were exciting days. We lived in a little shotgun house, one room for the three of us. [I] Worked in the oil business and then started my own.<br><br>And in time, we had six children. [We] Moved from the shotgun to a duplex apartment to a house and lived the dream—high-school football on Friday night, Little League, neighborhood barbecue.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25955|title=Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans|last=Bush|first=George H. W.|date=18 August 1988|work=American Presidency Project|publisher=University of California, Santa Barbara|access-date=22 July 2015|quote=Those were exciting days. Lived in a little shotgun house, one room for the three of us. Worked in the oil business, started my own. In time we had six children. Moved from the shotgun to a duplex apartment to a house. Lived the dream - high school football on Friday night, Little League, neighborhood barbecue.|archive-date=22 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722194744/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25955|url-status=dead}}</ref>}}