Peter M. Arkadiev |
Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences |
Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow
Yakov G. Testelets |
Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences |
Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow
In this paper we describe a peculiar pattern of case alternation from the polysynthetic Circassian (West
Caucasian) languages, where specificity-driven differential marking of noun phrases is attested in all syntactic positions and
with the absolutive and the oblique cases alike. We call this phenomenon differential nominal marking (DNM). We show that the
presenсe resp. absenсe of overt case marking in Circassian fits in the two-level (DP vs. NP) structural model for nominal
constructions and is in some ways similar to the phenomenon of pseudo-incorporation described for various languages with
differential object marking. For instance, unmarked nominals in Circassian show number-neutrality and scope inertness with respect
to negation and quantifiers. However, DNM in Circassian crucially differs from all known instances of pseudo-incorporation or case
alternation in that it is not restricted to any particular syntactic position. We argue that this feature of the Circassian DNM
calls all the existing approaches (both functionalist and generative) to the phenomenon of differential case marking in
question.
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