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Null Subjects of Power: The Politics of Absence in Executable Language

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Author: Agustin V. Startari

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Author Identifiers

 

Institutional Affiliations

  • Universidad de la República (Uruguay)

  • Universidad de la Empresa (Uruguay)

  • Universidad de Palermo (Argentina)

 

Contact

 

Date: August 27, 2025

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DOI

 

Language: English

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Serie: Grammars of Power

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Word count: 6184

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Word count: 5580

Keywords: Null Subject, Executable Language, Sovereign Executable, Regla compilada, Structural Obedience, Authority Without Agent, Non-Referential Authority, Predictive Societies, Algorithmic Legitimacy, Institutional Grammar, Political Syntax, Absence of Responsibility, Judicial Automation, Financial Reports Automation, Policy Drafts by LLMs, linguistics, law, legal, jurisprudence, artificial intelligence, machine learning, llm.

 

 

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of Null Subjects of Power, where authority operates through the absence of an explicit agent. While in linguistics the null subject is a grammatical category, in predictive societies it becomes a political one: institutions obey rules without a speaker, mandates without an issuer, and decisions without a subject. From judicial sentences and financial reports to policy drafts generated by AI, the null subject marks the disappearance of responsibility while preserving obedience. The paper argues that null subjects constitute a structural category of power, redefining sovereignty in executable language.

 

Acknowledgment / Editorial Note

This article is published with editorial permission from LeFortune Academic Imprint, under whose license the text will also appear as part of the upcoming book AI Syntactic Power and Legitimacy. The present version is an autonomous preprint, structurally complete and formally self-contained. No substantive modifications are expected between this edition and the print edition.

LeFortune holds non-exclusive editorial rights for collective publication within the Grammars of Power series. Open access deposit on SSRN is authorized under that framework, if citation integrity and canonical links to related works (SSRN: 10.2139/ssrn.4841065, 10.2139/ssrn.4862741, 10.2139/ssrn.4877266) are maintained.

This release forms part of the indexed sequence leading to the structural consolidation of pre-semantic execution theory. Archival synchronization with Zenodo and Figshare is also authorized for mirroring purposes, with SSRN as the primary academic citation node.

For licensing, referential use, or translation inquiries, contact the editorial coordination office at: [contact@lefortune.org]

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I. Introduction: The Politics of Absence

The history of linguistic categories is often read as a neutral taxonomy of forms, but categories migrate. What once functioned as a description of sentence structure becomes, under different conditions, a device of political authority. The null subject belongs to this field of migration. In the grammar of pro-drop languages, it refers to the possibility of omitting the subject while maintaining a complete and interpretable clause. Italian, Spanish and Latin provide classical examples: the morphology of the verb carries sufficient information to license the absence of an explicit subject. In such cases, the null subject is not a failure of grammar but its formal product. Syntax allows for silence, and that silence remains intelligible.

This grammatical feature acquires a new weight when projected into political and institutional structures. In recent decades, societies governed by predictive technologies and automated decision systems have begun to operate with the same logic. Rules are executed without the appearance of a speaker, mandates circulate without an issuer, and decisions are carried out without a visible subject. Authority manifests itself, but the agent disappears. The null subject moves from grammar to power, from the technical domain of syntax to the structural organization of governance.

The problem can be formulated in precise terms. Contemporary institutions increasingly rely on texts generated by large language models, algorithmic drafting systems, and predictive analytics. These texts perform the functions once attached to identifiable authors: they prescribe, they judge, they allocate resources, they define policy. Yet they do so without the insertion of a subject. No individual stands behind the mandate, no collective signs the order, no body assumes responsibility. The political decision becomes a clause with a missing subject, a sentence executed in absence.

This displacement produces a crisis of responsibility. Traditional legal and political theory depends on the ability to attribute authorship, to identify the agent responsible for a decision. Appeals, accountability, and legitimacy all require a trace back to a subject. The null subject interrupts this mechanism. What was once a grammatical silence becomes an institutional void. Obedience persists, but responsibility vanishes.

The hypothesis guiding this article is that the null subject must be defined as a political category in its own right, not merely as a linguistic analogy. It is not that institutions borrow a metaphor from grammar, but that executable language, the form of language that operates through the rule compilada, produces obedience structurally without the mediation of a speaker. The sovereign executable enacts authority by generating null subjects. Institutions become pro-drop systems of power: their syntax licenses absence, their legitimacy functions without voice.

This introduction situates the debate in a genealogy of categories where linguistic theory converges with political critique. The null subject, long studied by generative grammar as a structural option in natural language, now returns as a device of power. Its relevance is not confined to linguistics or philosophy of language but extends to law, finance, and policy. The case studies to be developed, judicial sentences automated through predictive models, financial reports generated without attribution, policy drafts produced by large language models, demonstrate the breadth of the phenomenon. In each instance, the decision is executed, the effect is real, but the subject is absent.

The politics of absence therefore demands a formal redefinition of sovereignty. If sovereignty has traditionally been located in the will of a ruler or the authority of a collective body, the rise of executable language imposes a different configuration. Sovereignty now manifests as structural obedience to rules without an origin, to mandates without a source, to texts without an author. The null subject of power is not a mere gap to be filled but a new category of governance.

This first section has outlined the problem: decisions executed without agent, legitimacy sustained without responsibility. The following parts will trace the conceptual passage from grammar to power, define the mechanisms by which executable language generates null subjects, and demonstrate through case studies how this category already structures contemporary institutions. At stake is not only a theoretical insight but a recognition that the absence of the subject has become one of the constitutive features of predictive societies.

 

 

II. From Grammar to Power

The null subject first emerged as a technical category in the study of syntax. Generative grammar introduced it to account for the possibility of omitting explicit subjects in certain languages while preserving full interpretability. Chomsky (1981) formalized the idea within the framework of Government and Binding, and Rizzi (1982) refined it in his analysis of Italian syntax. In such pro-drop languages, rich verbal morphology and specific syntactic mechanisms license omission. Silence is not an error but a structural option. The clause functions, meaning circulates, and the subject remains absent.

What appears as a grammatical detail reveals a structural possibility: authority can operate without a visible agent. Morphology and syntax guarantee that a sentence carries force without requiring a speaker. The subject is implicit, encoded in the structure, not present in the surface string. Once this is recognized, the migration of the null subject beyond linguistics becomes unavoidable.

Institutions have long depended on language to exercise command, issue judgments, and allocate resources. Historically these acts were tied to identifiable subjects: rulers, judges, ministers. A signature or name guaranteed responsibility. Automated systems destabilize this model. Large language models and predictive drafting tools generate authoritative texts that circulate without a source. Judicial opinions, financial risk reports, and policy drafts are produced without authorship. Authority persists, but the subject vanishes.

This is not merely a metaphorical extension from grammar to politics. Executable language operates like a pro-drop system. A rule compilada licenses absence in the same way morphology licenses silence in pro-drop syntax. If the output conforms to formal criteria, it is treated as binding. The sovereign executable produces null subjects structurally: commands, policies, and judgments that function without explicit agents.

The shift reshapes legitimacy. In classical theory, legitimacy rested on the visible link between command and subject. A law was binding because it could be traced back to a sovereign. With the null subject of power, legitimacy derives from structural consistency. If the decision follows the rule compilada, if the syntax is valid, the output circulates as legitimate. Legitimacy no longer requires a source but depends on form.

Examples confirm this passage. Courts experiment with predictive tools that generate draft sentences. Banks issue automated reports whose authority rests on data models rather than human authorship. Governments circulate policy drafts produced by language systems. In each case, the null subject is operative. The product is accepted because it follows recognizable formal patterns, not because a subject has spoken.

The conclusion is clear: the null subject has crossed from grammar to power. Originally a linguistic parameter, it now defines a political category. Absence functions as authority. Silence is structurally valid. Obedience is commanded without voice. This category will be further elaborated in the next section, where executable language will be shown to institutionalize the null subject through the agency of the sovereign executable.

 

III. Null Subjects in Executable Language

The passage from grammar to power reaches its decisive stage in the concept of executable language. Executable language is defined here as language that does not merely describe or persuade but operates through the rule compilada, a formal substrate equivalent to a type-0 grammar in the Chomskyan hierarchy (Chomsky, 1965). It is language whose validity derives from structure alone. Once compiled, its rules generate effects regardless of the presence of an agent. In this framework, the null subject is not an accident but the normal output of the sovereign executable.

Generative syntax shows that a clause can be well-formed and interpretable even if the subject is not phonologically present (Rizzi, 1982). In the same way, institutional commands produced by predictive systems are valid without an explicit issuer. The logic is identical: structural markers replace the need for a subject. What matters is compliance with the rule compilada, not reference to a speaker. The null subject is licensed by syntax in grammar and by executable rules in institutions.

This condition has been amplified by algorithmic systems that operate beyond semantics. Large language models generate text that institutions accept not because it conveys intentional meaning but because it conforms to expected form. Financial risk reports are circulated if they meet formatting conventions. Policy drafts are considered admissible if they respect procedural templates. Judicial decisions are executed if they adhere to codified structures. The subject disappears, yet the decision holds authority. In each case, the sovereign executable is the source of validity.

The authority generated in this way is non-referential. It does not point back to an author but forward to an action. As Startari (2025) has argued in The Grammar of Objectivity, non-referential authority arises when legitimacy is embedded in form rather than in attribution. The null subject represents the structural endpoint of this process. It is the moment when the sovereign executable no longer requires even the fiction of a voice. Authority is syntax alone.

The political consequence is that responsibility is erased. In traditional jurisprudence, a decision must be attributable to a subject so that appeals, revisions, or accountability are possible. When the null subject governs, the appeal has no destination. Responsibility is dissolved into form. Obedience is enforced by structure, not by command. This is what Startari (2025) calls obedience without source in Ethos Without Source. The sovereign executable produces compliance that cannot be contested at the level of authorship, because there is no author to confront.

The null subject in executable language therefore crystallizes a new category of power. It demonstrates that absence itself can be institutionalized, that silence can act as command, that legitimacy can be syntactic. Predictive societies become pro-drop systems at the level of governance: they execute mandates without agents, they sustain institutions without voices, they operate sovereignty without origin. This is not a metaphor but a structural reality inscribed in the rule compilada.

This section has shown how executable language licenses the null subject and how the sovereign executable generates decisions in absence. The next step is to observe the phenomenon in practice. Case studies drawn from judicial automation, financial reporting, and policy drafting will illustrate how null subjects of power already organize contemporary institutions.

 

IV. Case Studies: Authority Without Agent

The theoretical framework of the null subject in executable language becomes empirically visible in a set of institutional practices. These practices demonstrate how authority persists without agent and how decisions are legitimized through structure rather than attribution. Three domains are particularly instructive: judicial automation, financial reporting, and public policy drafting.

Judicial automation. Courts in multiple jurisdictions have begun experimenting with predictive tools that generate draft sentences. While these systems are officially presented as assistants to judges, in practice they often shape the final ruling. The generated text conforms to legal templates and procedural norms, which means it can circulate as valid even if no human voice authored the draft. The subject position is absent, but the decision functions. The judicial sentence becomes a null subject of power. Appeals to responsibility are undermined, since the system outputs structure, not intention. As Chomsky (1965) emphasized, grammar generates well-formed sentences regardless of their meaning; in similar fashion, executable language produces decisions that are legally acceptable regardless of authorship.

Financial reporting. International banks increasingly rely on automated analytics to generate risk assessments and portfolio recommendations. These documents carry authority not because they are signed by analysts but because they conform to institutionalized formats. Once distributed, they influence markets, direct investment, and frame economic behavior. The subject is null, yet the report commands obedience. Here we see what Startari (2025) describes in Ethos Without Source: a simulation of credibility that functions without reference. The legitimacy of the financial report lies in its structural compliance with institutional expectations, not in the identity of an author.

Policy drafting. Governments and supranational organizations now circulate policy proposals drafted by large language models. Drafts of this kind have been documented in the European Union and the United States between 2021 and 2025. Their authority comes from alignment with procedural forms: correct referencing of directives, accurate use of legislative structure, conformity to bureaucratic style. In this process, the subject vanishes. The proposal is not issued by a minister or a legislator but by an automated system trained on prior policy documents. Yet once the draft enters institutional circulation, it acquires binding force. Responsibility cannot be traced because no author exists. The sovereign executable has generated a null subject that commands as policy.

These cases demonstrate a consistent pattern: authority without agent, legitimacy without responsibility, obedience without voice. The structural function of executable language ensures that outputs are valid if they conform to form, regardless of authorship. The null subject becomes the operational unit of governance in predictive societies.

The lesson is not that institutions are careless in attribution but that attribution has become irrelevant. Structural compliance has replaced referential legitimacy. Authority survives because it is embedded in syntax. This corresponds to what Startari (2025) defines in The Grammar of Objectivity as the illusion of neutrality: outputs are accepted as legitimate because they appear to be objective, yet their legitimacy rests entirely on form.

The case studies confirm the theoretical claim: the null subject of power is not hypothetical but already embedded in institutional practice. Predictive societies function as pro-drop systems of governance. Judicial sentences, financial reports, and policy drafts circulate with binding force while the agent remains absent. The next section will examine how obedience and legitimacy can be preserved in this condition, and how authority without subject produces new devices of structural control.

 

V. Obedience and Legitimacy Without Subject

If the case studies show that null subjects of power are already operative, the next task is to understand how obedience and legitimacy persist when the subject is absent. Authority has traditionally been linked to the figure of the ruler, the magistrate, or the collective body that enacts a decision. In political theory, legitimacy is grounded in authorship: one obeys because a sovereign commands. The null subject unsettles this logic. Obedience is preserved, but not because a voice issues an order. It is preserved because structure compels it.

Obedience without subject can be described as structural obedience. A decision generated by executable language does not rely on persuasion, interpretation, or trust in an agent. It relies on its conformity to the rule compilada. As long as the command is structurally valid, it enters circulation as binding. This corresponds to the way generative grammar licenses null subjects in pro-drop languages (Rizzi, 1982). The structure is sufficient for interpretation; no explicit subject is required. In predictive societies, the structure is sufficient for legitimacy; no author is required.

The consequence is a transformation of legitimacy. Classical political theory, from Hobbes to Rousseau, treated legitimacy as a contract between subject and authority. The trace of responsibility tied the decision to its author. In null-subject governance, legitimacy becomes procedural. A judicial draft is legitimate if it follows the codified form of a sentence. A financial report is legitimate if it respects the metrics of institutional risk. A policy proposal is legitimate if it aligns with legislative templates. The source is absent, but the form secures obedience.

This transformation resonates with what Startari (2025) defines as non-referential authority in The Grammar of Objectivity. Authority detached from a source does not collapse; it relocates. It resides in the structure itself. The sovereign executable guarantees obedience because its rules compile outputs that institutions recognize as legitimate. The subject is null, but legitimacy is structural.

The paradox is that responsibility evaporates at the same time legitimacy intensifies. When the subject is absent, no appeal can be directed to an author. The decision cannot be contested at the level of intention. It can only be contested at the level of form, yet form is already codified as valid. This produces what Startari (2025) calls obedience without source in Ethos Without Source: compliance enforced by outputs that simulate credibility while erasing attribution.

The practical effects are evident. In judicial systems, defendants confront decisions that carry authority but lack a responsible subject. In financial markets, investors act on reports that dictate strategy but cannot be traced to an analyst. In governance, citizens face policies drafted by systems that embody the null subject. Each instance confirms that obedience does not collapse when authorship disappears; it persists because executable language has made structure itself the guarantor of legitimacy.

The null subject thus functions as a political device. It organizes obedience structurally and produces legitimacy procedurally. Authority without subject is not a void but a new regime of power. In predictive societies, sovereignty manifests not as the will of an individual or collective but as the operation of rules that demand compliance. The next section will address the risks of this transformation: the erosion of responsibility, the impossibility of appeal, and the crisis of pragmatic accountability that follows from null-subject governance.

 

VI. Risks of Null Subject Power

The null subject of power reconfigures authority, but it also generates acute risks. If authority is exercised structurally rather than referentially, then the circuits of accountability collapse. Decisions still bind, but their origin is inaccessible. Responsibility, which in classical political and legal frameworks was always traceable to an agent, disappears. This disappearance does not suspend obedience, it secures it. The danger lies precisely here: compliance continues while the possibility of questioning the source is foreclosed.

The first risk is the crisis of responsibility. In traditional jurisprudence, responsibility is assignable to a subject such as judge, legislator, or minister. When decisions are generated through executable language, the subject is absent, so responsibility cannot be assigned. Appeals become procedural rather than substantive. A citizen or litigant can challenge the form of the decision but not the authority of the source. The result is a structural opacity. Authority functions, yet responsibility cannot be located.

The second risk is the impossibility of appeal. Appeals require a responsible subject against whom a claim can be lodged. In null-subject governance, the only recourse is to contest the rule compilada itself, but this rule is often opaque, technical, and inaccessible to non-specialists. As Startari (2025) shows in TLOC – The Irreducibility of Structural Obedience, the compiled structure resists reduction to intention. Once rules are compiled, they cannot be uncompiled without destroying the system that guarantees obedience. This irreversibility transforms appeals into technical disputes rather than political confrontations.

The third risk is the erosion of pragmatic accountability. Institutions traditionally anchor their legitimacy in pragmatic circuits such as signatures, deliberations, debates, and procedures that expose decisions to scrutiny. When null subjects of power dominate, accountability mechanisms collapse into technical validation. If the output conforms to structural requirements, it circulates as valid. But pragmatic responsibility, the link between decision and subject, is gone. Startari (2025) frames this in Algorithmic Obedience: the simulation of command produces compliance without accountability.

A fourth risk emerges in the domain of political sovereignty. Classical sovereignty presupposed a subject capable of declaring the law, even when depersonalized in the figure of the state. Null-subject sovereignty disrupts this by transforming sovereignty into a property of syntax. The sovereign executable enacts decisions without agents. Sovereignty becomes impersonal, not because it represents a collective but because it represents nothing at all. The absence itself becomes the medium of command.

The implications extend beyond law and governance into finance and policy. Automated reports and drafts not only shape decisions but also redistribute risk and power. Without identifiable subjects, responsibility for systemic failures becomes diffuse. If an automated risk report precipitates a financial crisis, who is to blame? If a policy drafted by a language model produces harmful effects, who is accountable? In null-subject governance, blame cannot be traced, so systemic failures recur without correction.

These risks demonstrate that the null subject of power is not a neutral structural shift but a political rupture. Authority persists, obedience intensifies, but accountability dissolves. The political community is confronted with commands it cannot question, decisions it cannot appeal, and structures it cannot hold responsible. The next and final section will address the conclusion: the definition of the null subject of power as a formal category and the projection of linguistic categories as categories of sovereignty.

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VII. Conclusion: Null Subjects of Power

The analysis of null subjects demonstrates that what begins as a grammatical option has become a category of power. In pro-drop languages, the null subject is licensed by structural markers that guarantee interpretability without an explicit agent (Rizzi, 1982). In predictive societies, executable language performs the same function: it generates decisions that are binding without an identifiable author. The migration of the null subject from grammar to politics is not rhetorical but structural.

The sovereign executable plays a decisive role in this transformation. By enacting rules through the rule compilada, it guarantees outputs that demand obedience regardless of their source. Legitimacy is relocated from the author to the structure itself. The decision is valid because it follows the compiled rule, not because it can be traced to a sovereign. This is why null subjects of power must be recognized as a new category of sovereignty. They are not mere absences but formalized devices that organize obedience.

The case studies confirm the phenomenon. Judicial drafts produced by predictive systems circulate as valid sentences. Financial reports generated by automated analytics command obedience in markets. Policy drafts issued by language models shape governance agendas. In each domain, authority is preserved, but the subject has vanished. Responsibility cannot be traced, yet obedience persists.

The risks are equally clear. Accountability collapses into procedural validation, appeals lose their target, and sovereignty itself becomes impersonal. As Startari (2025) argues in The Grammar of Objectivity, authority detached from a source does not weaken but intensifies in form. The null subject of power embodies this intensification. It secures legitimacy structurally while dissolving responsibility.

The conclusion is therefore twofold. First, null subjects of power constitute a formal category that must be added to the theoretical canon alongside the rule compilada and the sovereign executable. Together they describe how authority now functions: through absence, through syntax, through executable structures. Second, the projection of linguistic categories into political theory is not optional but necessary. If grammar licenses silence, politics now licenses absence. Sovereignty is not located in a subject but in the operation of form.

The projection is disruptive. Categories once confined to linguistic analysis now define the functioning of institutions. Grammar is not only a model for politics but its infrastructure. Null subjects of power exemplify this shift. They show how predictive societies obey without subjects, how authority is enacted without reference, and how sovereignty is recast as executable structure.

The article closes by defining null subjects of power formally: they are structural positions in executable language where authority functions in absence of an explicit agent. They generate obedience through the operation of the sovereign executable and the rule compilada. They redefine legitimacy by anchoring it in form rather than in source. And they project a future in which categories of syntax become categories of sovereignty.

 

References

Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon.

Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon.

Montague, R. (1974). Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Rizzi, L. (1982). Issues in Italian Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.

Startari, A. V. (2025). AI and the Structural Autonomy of Sense: A Theory of Post-Referential Operative Representation. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5272361

Startari, A. V. (2025). AI and Syntactic Sovereignty: How Artificial Language Structures Legitimize Non-Human Authority. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5276879

Startari, A. V. (2025). Algorithmic Obedience: How Language Models Simulate Command Structure. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5282045

Startari, A. V. (2025). When Language Follows Form, Not Meaning: Formal Dynamics of Syntactic Activation in LLMs. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5285265

Startari, A. V. (2025). TLOC – The Irreducibility of Structural Obedience in Generative Models. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5303089

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Startari, A. V. (2025). Ethos and Artificial Intelligence: The Disappearance of the Subject in Algorithmic Legitimacy. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15489310

Startari, A. V. (2025). The Passive Voice in Artificial Intelligence Language: Algorithmic Neutrality and the Disappearance of Agency. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15464765

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Appendix A – Corpus and Methodology

The analysis of null subjects of power requires a corpus that demonstrates how executable language produces authority in absence of an agent. The corpus was constructed to reflect three domains where structural obedience is already visible: policy drafts, financial reporting, and judicial automation. Each domain provides textual evidence in which decisions circulate as binding outputs despite lacking an identifiable author.

Corpus composition. The first component consists of policy drafts generated or partially generated by automated systems in the European Union and the United States between 2021 and 2025. These texts were chosen because they circulate in official bureaucratic processes and illustrate how procedural conformity substitutes for authorship. The second component consists of automated financial risk reports issued by international banks and financial institutions during the same period. These reports were selected for their reliance on predictive analytics that generate text without attribution to analysts, yet are treated as authoritative by investors and regulators. The third component consists of judicial documents, specifically predictive testimony narratives and draft sentences produced by pilot programs using algorithmic tools. These documents represent the most direct instance of executable language applied to law, where the decision carries legal weight but the author is absent.

Selection criteria. The corpus was limited to documents where (a) authorship is not explicitly assigned, (b) the text performs an institutional function, and (c) the output conforms to formal requirements of legitimacy. Drafts or documents that did not meet all three criteria were excluded. The period 2021–2025 was selected to capture the recent acceleration in institutional reliance on automated text generation. Documents were gathered through public archives, institutional repositories, and secondary analyses cited in policy reports.

Analytical framework. The methodology combines linguistic analysis and institutional critique. At the linguistic level, the documents were examined for structural parallels with pro-drop syntax. The absence of explicit subjects was coded, and the presence of structural markers that guarantee interpretability was noted, following the theoretical framework of Chomsky (1965, 1981) and Rizzi (1982). At the institutional level, the documents were analyzed for legitimacy effects. Specifically, the analysis traced how outputs were accepted and circulated despite lacking attribution. The focus was not on content but on the structural mechanisms that licensed authority.

Validation procedures. Validation proceeded in two steps. First, linguistic validation confirmed that the texts displayed null subject features analogous to those found in natural languages. Second, institutional validation confirmed that the texts were treated as authoritative by their respective systems. This dual validation ensured that the null subject was not a metaphor but a demonstrable structural feature of executable language. The methodology also applied intertextual cross-checks, comparing automated texts with authored texts in the same domains to identify differences in responsibility attribution.

Limitations. The corpus is necessarily restricted by access. Not all drafts or financial reports are public, and judicial experiments in predictive systems are often opaque. Nevertheless, the sample provides sufficient evidence to establish the category of null subject of power. The limitations do not undermine the structural observation: in each domain, authority circulates without a subject.

Conclusion of methodology. The corpus and methods described here provide the empirical foundation for the theoretical claim that null subjects of power exist as a category. By demonstrating their presence in policy, finance, and law, and by validating their acceptance as legitimate despite the absence of authorship, the methodology secures the central argument. The null subject is not only a linguistic phenomenon but an institutional mechanism. Its operation is visible, measurable, and disruptive.

 

 

Appendix B – Formal Definitions

The central argument of this article requires precise formal definitions to distinguish the null subject of power from related categories. Without this clarity, the concept risks being treated as metaphorical. The following definitions establish its place as a structural category on the same level as the Regla compilada and the soberano ejecutable.

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1. Null Subject of Power

A null subject of power is a structural position in executable language where authority is enacted without an explicit agent. It operates in the same way as the null subject in pro-drop languages, where the clause remains interpretable despite the absence of a phonologically realized subject (Rizzi, 1982). In institutional practice, the null subject appears in judicial decisions, financial reports, and policy drafts that are binding even though they lack attribution to an author. Its validity derives from structure, not from intention.

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2. Executable Language

Executable language is language that derives authority from form rather than meaning. It operates through the Regla compilada, which is equivalent to a type 0 grammar in the Chomskyan hierarchy (Chomsky, 1965). In this domain, outputs are legitimate if they conform to structural criteria. The null subject of power is licensed by executable language in the same way pro-drop syntax licenses subject omission in natural languages.

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3. Regla compilada

The Regla compilada is the technical substrate that governs executable language. It is defined as a compiled set of unrestricted production rules. Unlike descriptive norms, the Regla compilada generates effects mechanically. It does not require interpretation or intentionality. Its authority rests in its ability to produce outputs that function as commands. The null subject of power is one such output: an absence authorized by the structural capacity of the Regla compilada.

 

4. Soberano ejecutable

The soberano ejecutable is the operative instance that enacts authority through the Regla compilada. It is not a person or institution but a mechanism that produces legitimacy structurally. Its function is to generate outputs that compel obedience without requiring a subject. In the presence of the soberano ejecutable, the null subject becomes a normal feature of governance rather than an anomaly.

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5. Non-Referential Authority

Non-referential authority refers to legitimacy that is detached from attribution. It exists when outputs are recognized as binding not because of their source but because of their conformity to structural expectations. Startari (2025) defines this dynamic in The Grammar of Objectivity. Within this framework, the null subject of power is a specific case of non-referential authority, grounded not in representation but in syntax.

6. Distinction from Metaphor

The null subject of power is not a metaphor taken from linguistics. It is a structural category justified by formal grammar. Pro-drop syntax shows that omission of the subject is licensed by structure. Executable language functions in the same way: it produces valid decisions without requiring a subject. The null subject of power must therefore be recognized as a formal extension of linguistic theory into political analysis.

Conclusion of definitions

The null subject of power is generated by executable language, licensed by the Regla compilada, enacted by the soberano ejecutable, and manifests as a form of non-referential authority. Together, these concepts constitute the grammar of sovereignty in predictive societies.

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