| Title: | Oblique Subjects in Indo-European Ergativity Splits |
| Authors: | M. Rita Manzini, Leonardo M. Savoia |
| Publication: | Revue roumaine de linguistique, LX (2-3), p. 297-315 Variation syntaxique / Syntactic Variation Edited by Jenneke van der Wal, Adina Dragomirescu and Alexandru Nicolae |
| p-ISSN: | 0035-3957 |
| Publisher: | Editura Academiei |
| Place: | București |
| Year: | 2015 |
| Abstract: | We argue that the fundamental oblique case of natural languages (the genitive/dative) corresponds to an elementary inclusion or part-whole predicate, whose internal argument (the whole, or possessor) is the DP which the case embeds, while its external argument is a DP (the part or possessum) coinciding either with the head of a genitive construction or with the theme of a ditransitive verb. In some languages, the all purposes oblique (as in Kurdish) or a specialized oblique, i.e. the ergative (as in Punjabi), lexicalizes the (transitive) subject of perfect sentences. We propose that (in these languages) perfect predicates correspond to a VP projection; external arguments are introduced by means of an oblique case, saying that the event is ‘included by’ (cf. ‘located at’) the argument. A more complex organization is found with imperfective/progressive predicates, where a head Asp projects a functional layer and can introduce the external argument, determining nominative type agreement. |
| Key words: | oblique case, dative, genitive, ergative, ergativity split |
| Language: | English |
| Links: |  pdf  html |
Citations to this publication: 0
References in this publication: 1
| 14 | A. Alexiadou | Functional Structure in Nominals | John Benjamins | 2001 |
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