We investigate the sources of betting constructions, and specifically their predicates. The notion of risking something of value on an outcome is a complex one. Culturally, some degree of disposability of property is required. The concept is nevertheless lexicalized in many parts of the world.… read more
This paper investigates the lexical and morpho-syntactic strategies used in three branches of European languages (Slavic, Romance, and Germanic) to express a specific non-prototypical type of three-participant event: that of an agent introducing a human Theme to a human Recipient. Earlier… read more
In this contribution we discuss three different approaches to grammatical relations (GR), all situated within the functional-typological paradigm. Taking the major distinctions from these as a point of departure, we construct a three-way typology to classify languages with respect to GRs. Finally,… read more
This paper is concerned with two kinds of so-called R-impersonals, i.e. impersonals triggered by a reduction in referentiality, namely third-person plural impersonals (3pl-imps) and man-constructions (man-imps). In the languages of Europe, both of these impersonal constructions display a wide range… read more
This paper provides an overview of referential impersonal constructions in Mandarin Chinese. It is shown that while like many European languages Mandarin utilizes generalized nouns, special person forms, regular personal pronouns and a zero pronoun in the subject position to encode impersonality,… read more
This paper explores the development of third person plural impersonal constructions into passive ones with the aim of determining the conditions most conducive to the emergence of a canonical passive, i.e. one which is both promotional (with an overt lexical subject) and agentive (with an overt… read more
The term impersonal is used in the literature to denote subjectless constructions, constructions featuring only a pleonastic subject, and constructions which lack a specified agent. This chapter focuses on the third of these types, which are often expressed in languages by the non-personal use of… read more
Linguistic theories typically have a static, competence-based view of the notion Subject. In this view speakers choose their Subjects freely from the relevant constituents of a clause, typically the arguments of the main predicate. However, when one looks at what speakers actually do, it becomes… read more
In a recent article Gensler (2003) has argued that little can be said about the ordering of bound person markers of the T(heme) and R(ecipient) relative to each other or relative to the verb stem apart from the fact that the outer markers are likely to be the result of a second-level cliticization… read more
Siewierska, Anna and Willem B. Hollmann 2007 IntroductionDitransitivity, Siewierska, Anna and Willem B. Hollmann (eds.), pp. 1–7 | Article
Unlike many other languages, English has three ditransitive constructions; a prepositional one in which the recipient or beneficiary is marked by a preposition and two double object constructions, one in which the recipient precedes the theme and the other in which the theme precedes the recipient.… read more
Among the theoretical frameworks which consider grammatical relations to be a possible but not necessary level of clausal organization, the approach to the object relation espoused in Simon Dik's (1978, 198g, 1997) Functional Grammar is the most restrictive. Unlike various other models of grammar,… read more
The article examines the distribution and formal realization of Subject and Object agreement markers in different word order types on the basis of a sample of 237 languages. Special attention is paid to the genetic and areal stratification of agreement markers and the impact of these two parameters… read more