John Benjamins Publishing Company
The notion of oblique subject and its status in the history of Icelandic
Abstract
The term ‘oblique subject’ is used in recent descriptions of Icelandic about NPs that behave syntactically like subjects without having nominative case. Data in support of such an analysis can easily be found in Modern Icelandic. Various linguists have assumed that also Old Icelandic has oblique subjects. In this paper I first discuss the notion of oblique subject on a metatheoretical basis. My claim is that oblique subject is not an empirical entity, it is a result of a decision to use it as a descriptive device because it may yield a more economical or elegant description of certain facts about the language. The main body of the paper is a thorough examination of the kinds of data that have been used in support of an oblique subject analysis for Old Icelandic, supplemented by some of my own additional data. It turns out that the set of subject properties of Old Icelandic is different (smaller) than that of Modern Icelandic, and the result of this examination is that Old Icelandic does not exhibit data that call for an oblique subject analysis. The final section of the paper offers an account of the diachronic process that may have led to the kind of structure that justifies an oblique subject analysis of Modern Icelandic. This process is a reanalysis leading to a change in the possible content of the Specifier position of IP, whereby it has become an exclusive subject position. Non-nominative NPs in that position may have kept their oblique case, and become oblique subjects.
Abstract
The term ‘oblique subject’ is used in recent descriptions of Icelandic about NPs that behave syntactically like subjects without having nominative case. Data in support of such an analysis can easily be found in Modern Icelandic. Various linguists have assumed that also Old Icelandic has oblique subjects. In this paper I first discuss the notion of oblique subject on a metatheoretical basis. My claim is that oblique subject is not an empirical entity, it is a result of a decision to use it as a descriptive device because it may yield a more economical or elegant description of certain facts about the language. The main body of the paper is a thorough examination of the kinds of data that have been used in support of an oblique subject analysis for Old Icelandic, supplemented by some of my own additional data. It turns out that the set of subject properties of Old Icelandic is different (smaller) than that of Modern Icelandic, and the result of this examination is that Old Icelandic does not exhibit data that call for an oblique subject analysis. The final section of the paper offers an account of the diachronic process that may have led to the kind of structure that justifies an oblique subject analysis of Modern Icelandic. This process is a reanalysis leading to a change in the possible content of the Specifier position of IP, whereby it has become an exclusive subject position. Non-nominative NPs in that position may have kept their oblique case, and become oblique subjects.
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
