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Diachrony of experiencer subject marking

Evidence from East Caucasian

Abstract

Daghestanian languages of the Caucasus show consistent use of the dative and locative cases to mark subject arguments with certain verbs, most notably the experiencers of the verbs ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘know’, ‘want’, ‘forget’, ‘find’ and some others. Although this pattern is very stable and can probably be reconstructed for Proto-Daghestanian, variation in experiencer marking reveals that diachronic changes happened to non-canonical subjects at a later stage of evolution. The paper looks into two related issues concerning the diachrony of experiencer subjects in Daghestanian languages: the relative diachronic stability of non-canonical case marking and non-canonical agreement, and the loss of non-canonical subjects in Udi and Dargwa.

Abstract

Daghestanian languages of the Caucasus show consistent use of the dative and locative cases to mark subject arguments with certain verbs, most notably the experiencers of the verbs ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘know’, ‘want’, ‘forget’, ‘find’ and some others. Although this pattern is very stable and can probably be reconstructed for Proto-Daghestanian, variation in experiencer marking reveals that diachronic changes happened to non-canonical subjects at a later stage of evolution. The paper looks into two related issues concerning the diachrony of experiencer subjects in Daghestanian languages: the relative diachronic stability of non-canonical case marking and non-canonical agreement, and the loss of non-canonical subjects in Udi and Dargwa.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Introduction ix
  5. Part I. Rise of non-canonical subjects or subject-like obliques
  6. Non selected dative arguments in Spanish anticausative constructions 3
  7. The rise of animacy-based differential subject marking in Dutch 35
  8. The rise of oblique subjects in Russian 55
  9. Non-canonical subject marking 73
  10. The rise of non-canonical subjects and semantic alignments in Hindi 91
  11. Part II. Historical changes in constructions with non-canonical subjects or subject-like obliques
  12. Experiencers and psychological noun predicates 121
  13. Between Finnic and Indo-European 139
  14. On the historical expansion of non-canonically marked ‘subjects’ in Spanish 163
  15. Part III. From non-canonical subjects or subject-like obliques to canonical subjects
  16. Subjects in Scandinavian 187
  17. The me pudet construction in the history of Latin 203
  18. Diachrony of experiencer subject marking 231
  19. Obliqueness, quasi-subjects and transitivity in Baltic and Slavonic 257
  20. Rise of canonical subjecthood 283
  21. Synthesis
  22. The diachronic typology of non-canonical subjects and subject-like obliques 313
  23. Language index 361
  24. Subject index 363
The Diachronic Typology of Non-Canonical Subjects
This chapter is in the book The Diachronic Typology of Non-Canonical Subjects
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.140.11gan

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Introduction ix
  5. Part I. Rise of non-canonical subjects or subject-like obliques
  6. Non selected dative arguments in Spanish anticausative constructions 3
  7. The rise of animacy-based differential subject marking in Dutch 35
  8. The rise of oblique subjects in Russian 55
  9. Non-canonical subject marking 73
  10. The rise of non-canonical subjects and semantic alignments in Hindi 91
  11. Part II. Historical changes in constructions with non-canonical subjects or subject-like obliques
  12. Experiencers and psychological noun predicates 121
  13. Between Finnic and Indo-European 139
  14. On the historical expansion of non-canonically marked ‘subjects’ in Spanish 163
  15. Part III. From non-canonical subjects or subject-like obliques to canonical subjects
  16. Subjects in Scandinavian 187
  17. The me pudet construction in the history of Latin 203
  18. Diachrony of experiencer subject marking 231
  19. Obliqueness, quasi-subjects and transitivity in Baltic and Slavonic 257
  20. Rise of canonical subjecthood 283
  21. Synthesis
  22. The diachronic typology of non-canonical subjects and subject-like obliques 313
  23. Language index 361
  24. Subject index 363
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