Oblique Subjects in Germanic

Oblique Subjects in Germanic

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  • Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
  • Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
  • ISBN: 3111078078
  • Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 499

Pulling together the threads of forty years of research on oblique subjects in the Germanic languages, this book introduces a novel approach to grammatical relations, based on a definition of subject as the first argument of the argument structure. New data are presented from Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Norse-Icelandic, Old Swedish and Old Danish, as well as from Icelandic, Faroese and German. This includes alternating Dat-Nom/Nom-Dat predicates, where either argument, the dative or the nominative, takes on subject behavior. The subject concept is modeled with the formalism of Construction Grammar, both synchronically and for the purpose of reconstructing grammatical relations for Proto-Germanic.


Features, Categories and the Syntax of A-Positions

Features, Categories and the Syntax of A-Positions

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  • Author: E. Haeberli
  • Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
  • ISBN: 9401006040
  • Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 381

This book investigates various aspects of the distribution of nominal arguments, and in particular the cross-linguistic variation that can be found among the Germanic languages in this domain of the syntax. The empirical topics discussed include variable vs. fixed argument order, the distribution of subjects with respect to adjuncts, expletive constructions, and oblique subjecthood. These are analyzed within a theoretical framework which is based on the Minimalist Program.


Word-Order Change as a Source of Grammaticalisation

Word-Order Change as a Source of Grammaticalisation

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  • Author: Susann Fischer
  • Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
  • ISBN: 9027288186
  • Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 200

This book presents a new perspective on the interaction between word-order and grammaticalisation by investigating the changes that stylistic fronting and oblique subjects have undergone in Romance (Catalan, French, Spanish) as compared to Germanic (English, Icelandic). It discusses a great deal of historical comparative data showing that stylistic fronting and oblique subjects have (had) a semantic effect in the Germanic and in the Romance languages, and that they both appear in the same functional category. The loss of stylistic fronting and oblique subjects is seen as an effect of grammaticalisation, where grammaticalisation is taken to be a regular case of parameter change. In contrast to previous and recent approaches to grammaticalisation, however, the author shows that it is not the loss of morphology that triggers grammaticalisation with subsequent word-order changes, but that the word-order change sets off grammaticalisation in the functional categories, which is then followed by the loss of morphology.


Topic Drop and Null Subjects in German

Topic Drop and Null Subjects in German

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  • Author: Ewa Trutkowski
  • Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
  • ISBN: 3110446170
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 257

This monograph deals with argument drop in the German prefield and it presents new insights into null subjects, topic drop and the interpretation of topic dropped elements. Major issues are (inter alia) the drop of structurally vs. obliquely cased arguments and the question on which basis nominative/accusative and dative/genitive can be kept apart. Furthermore, it is shown that the (im)possibility of phi-feature mismatches concerning the antecedent and gap in topic drop dialogues allows to differentiate between coreference and "real" (quantifier) binding. Aside from topic drop, (1st/2nd vs. 3rd person) null subjects are investigated across a couple of unrelated languages, also focusing on the presence of syncretisms within verbal inflectional paradigms. It is proven that 1st/2nd person null subjects in German are not an instance of antecedent-dependent topic drop but that they are licensed by discrete verbal inflectional endings. Thus, according to this property, German can be classified as a partial pro-drop language. Next to theoretical discussions and considerations this book offers a broad (empirically covered) data basis, which makes it suitable for both theoretically and empirically interested (generative) linguists.


Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects

Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects

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  • Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
  • Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
  • ISBN: 9027263515
  • Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 288

Interest in non-canonically case-marked subjects has been unceasing since the groundbreaking work of Andrews and Masica in the late 70’s who were the first to document the existence of syntactic subjects in another morphological case than the nominative. Their research was focused on Icelandic and South-Asian languages, respectively, and since then, oblique subjects have been reported for language after language throughout the world. This newfangled recognition of the concept of oblique subjects at the time was followed by discussions of the role and validity of subject tests, discussions of the verbal semantics involved, as well as discussions of the theoretical implications of this case marking strategy of syntactic subjects. This volume contributes to all these debates, making available research articles on different languages and language families, additionally highlighting issues like language contact, differential subject marking and the origin of oblique subjects.


The MIHI EST construction

The MIHI EST construction

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  • Author: Mihaela Ilioaia
  • Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
  • ISBN: 3111055620
  • Category : Foreign Language Study
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 413

This book examines the Romanian mihi est construction (Mi-e foame/frică, me.dat = is hunger/fear ‘I am hungry/ afraid’). While it disappeared from all other Romance languages to be replaced with a habeo structure, the mihi est pattern is in Romanian the most common way of expressing psychological or physiological states. By means of synchronic and diachronic corpus studies, the book investigates the status of the core arguments of the mihi est structure, i.e. the dative experiencer and the nominative state noun, as well as its evolution throughout the centuries. The data analysis reveals that the dative experiencer syntactically behaves like nominative subjects, whereas the state noun shows predicate behavior. As for the evolution of the mihi est structure, the analysis shows a certain tendency toward innovation, since in present-day Romanian it can coerce nouns coming from other semantic fields into the construction’s psychological or physiological interpretation. Could this be another unique trait of Romanian, which causes it to seemingly go against the tendency of most Romance languages toward canonical marking of core arguments?


Case, Valency and Transitivity

Case, Valency and Transitivity

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  • Author: Leonid Kulikov
  • Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
  • ISBN: 9027293112
  • Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 503

The three concepts of case, valency and transitivity belong to the most discussed topics of modern linguistics. On the one hand, they are crucially connected with morphological aspects of the clause, including case marking, person agreement and voice. On the other hand, they are related to several semantic issues such as the meaning of case, semantico-syntactic verbal classes, and the semantic correlates of transitivity. The volume unifies papers written within different theoretical frameworks and representing variegated approaches (Optimality Theory, Government and Binding, various versions of the Functional approach, Cross-linguistic and Typological analyses), containing both numerous new findings in individual languages and valuable observations and generalizations related to case, valency and transitivity.


The Bloomsbury Companion to Syntax

The Bloomsbury Companion to Syntax

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  • Author: Silvia Luraghi
  • Publisher: A&C Black
  • ISBN: 1441124608
  • Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 561

The Bloomsbury Companion to Syntax is the definitive guide to a key area of linguistic study.


Syntactic Reconstruction and Proto-Germanic

Syntactic Reconstruction and Proto-Germanic

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  • Author: George Walkden
  • Publisher: Oxford Studies in Diachronic a
  • ISBN: 0198712294
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 296

This book offers reconstructions of various syntactic properties of Proto-Germanic, including verb position in main clauses, the syntax of the wh-system, and the (non-)occurrence of null pronominal subjects and objects. Although previous studies have looked at the lexical and phonological reconstruction of Proto-Germanic, little is currently known about the syntax of the language, and it has even been argued that the reconstruction of syntax is impossible. Dr Walkden uses extensive evidence from the early Germanic languages - Old English, Old High German, Old Saxon, Old Norse, and Gothic - to show that syntactic reconstruction is not only possible but also profitable. He argues that while the reconstruction of syntax differs from lexical-phonological reconstruction due to the so-called 'correspondence problem', this is not insurmountable. In fact, the approach taken in current Minimalist theories, in which syntactic variation is attributed to the properties of lexical items, opens the door for syntactic reconstruction as lexical reconstruction. The book also discusses practical solutions for circumventing the correspondence problem, in particular the use of both distributional properties of lexical items and the phonological forms of such items in order to establish cognacy. The book will be of interest to historical linguists working on syntactic reconstruction and the Germanic languages, from graduate level upwards, as well as to advanced students of syntactic change more generally.


Grammatical Relations in Change

Grammatical Relations in Change

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  • Author: Jan Terje Faarlund
  • Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
  • ISBN: 9789027230584
  • Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 346

The eleven selected contributions making up this volume deal with grammatical relations, their coding and behavioral properties, and the change that these properties have undergone in different languages. The focus of this collection is on the changing properties of subjects and objects, although the scope of the volume goes beyond the central problems pertaining to case marking and word order. The diachrony of syntactic and morphosyntactic phenomena are approached from different theoretical perspectives, generative grammar, valency grammar, and functionalism. The languages dealt with include Old English, Mainland Scandinavian, Icelandic, German and other Germanic languages, Latin, French and other Romance languages, Northeast Caucasian, Eskimo, and Popolocan. This book provides an opportunity to compare different theoretical approaches to similar phenomena in different languages and language families.