John Benjamins Publishing Company
‘Oblique subjects’, structural and lexical case marking
Abstract
The present paper is an attempt to give an integrated account of certain developments in North Germanic syntax: (1) Modern Icelandic and Faroese have so-called oblique subjects, i.e. dative, accusative or even genitive NPs with essentially the same distribution and syntactic rule properties as modern Mainland Scandinavian subjects. (2) Both Old and Modern Icelandic have a rather intricate system of lexical case assignment which differs from, e.g., the predominantly structural case assignment of Modern German.
(3) Old Icelandic has DO-IO as well as IO-DO order, whereas Modern Icelandic, like non-case-marking Modern Mainland Scandinavian, to a greater extent has IO-DO. — On the basis of these data it is argued that after the North Germanic shift to SVO, the development has been in the direction of a modern topologically, not morphologically oriented syntax both in the non-case-marking and the case-marking languages. Among other things, this explains why case assignment has remained lexical and idiosyncratic in Icelandic instead of shifting to a simpler system of structural case assignment.
Abstract
The present paper is an attempt to give an integrated account of certain developments in North Germanic syntax: (1) Modern Icelandic and Faroese have so-called oblique subjects, i.e. dative, accusative or even genitive NPs with essentially the same distribution and syntactic rule properties as modern Mainland Scandinavian subjects. (2) Both Old and Modern Icelandic have a rather intricate system of lexical case assignment which differs from, e.g., the predominantly structural case assignment of Modern German.
(3) Old Icelandic has DO-IO as well as IO-DO order, whereas Modern Icelandic, like non-case-marking Modern Mainland Scandinavian, to a greater extent has IO-DO. — On the basis of these data it is argued that after the North Germanic shift to SVO, the development has been in the direction of a modern topologically, not morphologically oriented syntax both in the non-case-marking and the case-marking languages. Among other things, this explains why case assignment has remained lexical and idiosyncratic in Icelandic instead of shifting to a simpler system of structural case assignment.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
- How far does semantic bleaching go 15
- ‘Oblique subjects’, structural and lexical case marking 65
- The notion of oblique subject and its status in the history of Icelandic 99
- Towards personal subjects in English 137
- Focus and universal principles governing simplification of cleft structures 159
- Recasting Danish subjects 171
- Ergative to accusative 205
- Subject and object in Old English and Latin copular deontics 223
- The loss of lexical case in Swedish 241
- The coding of the subject–object distinction from Latin to Modern French 273
- Changes in Popolocan word order and clause structure 303
- Index 323
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
- How far does semantic bleaching go 15
- ‘Oblique subjects’, structural and lexical case marking 65
- The notion of oblique subject and its status in the history of Icelandic 99
- Towards personal subjects in English 137
- Focus and universal principles governing simplification of cleft structures 159
- Recasting Danish subjects 171
- Ergative to accusative 205
- Subject and object in Old English and Latin copular deontics 223
- The loss of lexical case in Swedish 241
- The coding of the subject–object distinction from Latin to Modern French 273
- Changes in Popolocan word order and clause structure 303
- Index 323
