Why should beneficiaries be subjects (or objects)?
-
Fernando Zúñiga
Abstract
The present paper proposes a semantico-pragmatic representation of benefactive situations according to which beneficiaries are affected participants that are peripheral with respect to an overtly expressed causing subevent but core participants with respect to a covert resulting subevent. Such a view can be used to capture and further explore intralinguistic and crosslinguistic generalizations related to the fact that beneficiaries can be adjuncts, objects and even subjects in natural languages. Rather than postulating a particular theory of argument realization, this paper illustrates different syntactic realizations of beneficiaries and shows how they relate to the meaning of the construction.
Abstract
The present paper proposes a semantico-pragmatic representation of benefactive situations according to which beneficiaries are affected participants that are peripheral with respect to an overtly expressed causing subevent but core participants with respect to a covert resulting subevent. Such a view can be used to capture and further explore intralinguistic and crosslinguistic generalizations related to the fact that beneficiaries can be adjuncts, objects and even subjects in natural languages. Rather than postulating a particular theory of argument realization, this paper illustrates different syntactic realizations of beneficiaries and shows how they relate to the meaning of the construction.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction to case, animacy and semantic roles 1
- Remarks on the coding of Goal, Recipient and Vicinal Goal in European Uralic 29
- A case in search of an independent life 65
- The division of labour between synonymous locative cases and adpositions 113
- Is there a future for the Finnish comitative? 135
- Animacy and spatial cases 157
- There’s more than “more animate” 183
- The coding of spatial relations with human landmarks 209
- A survey of the origins of directional case suffixes in European Uralic 235
- Dutch spatial case 283
- Case on the margins 305
- Why should beneficiaries be subjects (or objects)? 329
- General index 349
- Language index 353
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction to case, animacy and semantic roles 1
- Remarks on the coding of Goal, Recipient and Vicinal Goal in European Uralic 29
- A case in search of an independent life 65
- The division of labour between synonymous locative cases and adpositions 113
- Is there a future for the Finnish comitative? 135
- Animacy and spatial cases 157
- There’s more than “more animate” 183
- The coding of spatial relations with human landmarks 209
- A survey of the origins of directional case suffixes in European Uralic 235
- Dutch spatial case 283
- Case on the margins 305
- Why should beneficiaries be subjects (or objects)? 329
- General index 349
- Language index 353
