The term ‘oblique subject’ is used in recent descriptions of Icelandic about NPs that behave syntactically like subjects without having nominative case. Data in support of such an analysis can easily be found in Modern Icelandic. Various linguists have assumed that also Old Icelandic has oblique subjects. In this paper I first discuss the notion of oblique subject on a metatheoretical basis. My claim is that oblique subject is not an empirical entity, it is a result of a decision to use it as a descriptive device because it may yield a more economical or elegant description of certain facts about the language. The main body of the paper is a thorough examination of the kinds of data that have been used in support of an oblique subject analysis for Old Icelandic, supplemented by some of my own additional data. It turns out that the set of subject properties of Old Icelandic is different (smaller) than that of Modern Icelandic, and the result of this examination is that Old Icelandic does not exhibit data that call for an oblique subject analysis. The final section of the paper offers an account of the diachronic process that may have led to the kind of structure that justifies an oblique subject analysis of Modern Icelandic. This process is a reanalysis leading to a change in the possible content of the Specifier position of IP, whereby it has become an exclusive subject position. Non-nominative NPs in that position may have kept their oblique case, and become oblique subjects.
2022. Information structure, functional left peripheries, and the history of a Hungarian interrogative marker. In Functional Heads Across Time, ► pp. 111 ff.
2012. ‘Hungering and Lusting for Women and Fleshly Delicacies’: Reconstructing Grammatical Relations for Proto‐Germanic*. Transactions of the Philological Society 110:3 ► pp. 363 ff.
Barđdal, Jóhanna, Leonid Kulikov, Roland Pooth & Peter Alexander Kerkhof
2020. Oblique anticausatives: A morphosyntactic isogloss in Indo-European. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 56:3 ► pp. 413 ff.
Danckaert, Lieven
2022. Changing patterns of clausal complementation in Latin. In Functional Heads Across Time, ► pp. 19 ff.
Dragomirescu, Adina & Virginia Hill
2022. From split to remerged Fin in Romanian supine complements. In Functional Heads Across Time, ► pp. 56 ff.
Barbara Egedi & Veronika Hegedűs
2022. Functional Heads Across Time,
Egedi, Barbara & Veronika Hegedűs
2022. The role of functional heads in syntactic change. In Functional Heads Across Time, ► pp. 1 ff.
Eythórsson, Thórhallur
2002. Negation in C: The Syntax of Negated Verbs in Old Norse. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 25:2 ► pp. 190 ff.
2022. From Old to Modern Icelandic. In Functional Heads Across Time, ► pp. 210 ff.
Zinchenko, H.
2018. THE SYNTACTIC STATUS OF OBLIQUE SUBJECT IN GERMANIC LANGUAGES. Studia Philologica► pp. 47 ff.
[no author supplied]
2010. Primary Sources: Texts and Editions. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I, ► pp. 293 ff.
[no author supplied]
2010. Preface. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I, ► pp. xii ff.
[no author supplied]
2010. Special Phonetic Symbols. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I, ► pp. 288 ff.
[no author supplied]
2010. Copyright Page. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I, ► pp. iv ff.
[no author supplied]
2010. Abbreviations. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I, ► pp. xvii ff.
[no author supplied]
2010. Bibliographical Abbreviations. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I, ► pp. xxix ff.
[no author supplied]
2010. Dating and Other Conventions. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I, ► pp. xv ff.
[no author supplied]
2022. List of Abbreviations. In Functional Heads Across Time, ► pp. viii ff.
[no author supplied]
2022. Series Preface. In Functional Heads Across Time, ► pp. vii ff.
[no author supplied]
2022. Copyright Page. In Functional Heads Across Time, ► pp. iv ff.
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