The emergence of oblique subjects
Identifiable processes in the history of Icelandic
Predicate-specific oblique subjects have emerged throughout the history of Icelandic. The novel
contribution of this paper is spelling out the precise mechanisms of the changes. We focus on three general processes:
Oblique-Case Substitution (OCS), Case-Preserving Anticausativization (CPA) and Argument Swapping (ARS). OCS involves
morphosyntactic leveling targeting experiencer predicates, causing nominative experiencer subjects to be replaced by oblique
ones. CPA is a special kind of anticausativization, where the oblique case of the object of a transitive verb matches the case
of the subject of the corresponding anticausative, resulting in an oblique-subject construction. Finally, ARS involves a
reanalysis of an object as a subject. The oblique subject in dative-nominative structures, in particular with
st-predicates (‘middles’), arose through ARS from earlier nominative-dative structures, motivated by
the animacy of the dative.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Subject case in Icelandic
- 3.Pathways in the emergence of oblique subjects
- 3.1Oblique-Case Substitution
- 3.2Case-Preserving Anticausativization
- 4.Evidence for a further pathway: Argument Swapping
- 4.1Oblique NPs with st-predicates
- 4.2Conditions for ARS
- 4.3Further considerations and summary
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
Abbreviations
-
References
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