Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek
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Adam Cooper
Abstract
This paper presents a syntactically-centered analysis of the loss of argumental dative case in the history of Greek. We treat the replacement strategies using accusative and genitive case as individual phenomena contributing to the same end, loss of dative. We argue that in Post-Classical times in possessor raising constructions the genitive possessor pronoun, given its clitic status, is attracted to the head of the Appl(icative)P(hrase) from within the possessee and comes to transfer its genitive Case feature to the head of ApplP. Once the applicative head has a genitive Case feature, it assigns inherent genitive Case to full noun phrases in the [Spec,ApplP]. The replacement of dative by accusative involves loss of the [dative] Case feature of v, resulting in the replacement of dative objects of monotransitive verbs by accusative ones in Medieval Greek. To account for the replacement of dative indirect objects by accusative indirect objects in the northern Greek dialects, we propose that accusative replaced genitive Case in Appl, but retained its inherent Case properties.
Abstract
This paper presents a syntactically-centered analysis of the loss of argumental dative case in the history of Greek. We treat the replacement strategies using accusative and genitive case as individual phenomena contributing to the same end, loss of dative. We argue that in Post-Classical times in possessor raising constructions the genitive possessor pronoun, given its clitic status, is attracted to the head of the Appl(icative)P(hrase) from within the possessee and comes to transfer its genitive Case feature to the head of ApplP. Once the applicative head has a genitive Case feature, it assigns inherent genitive Case to full noun phrases in the [Spec,ApplP]. The replacement of dative by accusative involves loss of the [dative] Case feature of v, resulting in the replacement of dative objects of monotransitive verbs by accusative ones in Medieval Greek. To account for the replacement of dative indirect objects by accusative indirect objects in the northern Greek dialects, we propose that accusative replaced genitive Case in Appl, but retained its inherent Case properties.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
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Part I. General and specific issues of language change
- Competing reinforcements 3
- On the reconstruction of experiential constructions in (Late) Proto-Indo-European 31
- Criteria for differentiating inherent and contact-induced changes in language reconstruction 49
- Misparsing and syntactic reanalysis 69
- How different is prototype change? 89
- The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order 107
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Part II. Linguistic variation and change in Germanic
- The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge- 131
- Diachronic changes in long-distance dependencies 155
- Changes in the use of the Frisian quantifiers ea/oait “ever” between 1250 and 1800 171
- On the development of the perfect (participle) 191
- OV and V-to-I in the history of Swedish 211
- Ethnicity as an independent factor of language variation across space 231
- The sociolinguistics of spelling 253
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Part III. Linguistic variation and change in Greek
- Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek 277
- Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions 293
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Part IV. Linguistic change in Romance
- The morphological evolution of infinitive, future and conditional forms in Occitan 317
- The evolution of the encoding of direction in the history of French 333
- Velle -type prohibitions in Latin 355
- The use and development of habere + infinitive in Latin 373
- Index 399
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I. General and specific issues of language change
- Competing reinforcements 3
- On the reconstruction of experiential constructions in (Late) Proto-Indo-European 31
- Criteria for differentiating inherent and contact-induced changes in language reconstruction 49
- Misparsing and syntactic reanalysis 69
- How different is prototype change? 89
- The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order 107
-
Part II. Linguistic variation and change in Germanic
- The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge- 131
- Diachronic changes in long-distance dependencies 155
- Changes in the use of the Frisian quantifiers ea/oait “ever” between 1250 and 1800 171
- On the development of the perfect (participle) 191
- OV and V-to-I in the history of Swedish 211
- Ethnicity as an independent factor of language variation across space 231
- The sociolinguistics of spelling 253
-
Part III. Linguistic variation and change in Greek
- Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek 277
- Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions 293
-
Part IV. Linguistic change in Romance
- The morphological evolution of infinitive, future and conditional forms in Occitan 317
- The evolution of the encoding of direction in the history of French 333
- Velle -type prohibitions in Latin 355
- The use and development of habere + infinitive in Latin 373
- Index 399
