Cover not available
Part of
Grammatical Relations and their Non-Canonical Encoding in Baltic
Edited by Axel Holvoet and Nicole Nau
[Valency, Argument Realization and Grammatical Relations in Baltic 1] 2014
► pp. 301–361

On the non-canonical marking of the highest-ranking argument in Lithuanian and Icelandic

Steps toward a database

ORCID logo | Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz | Vilnius University
| Vilnius University | Stockholm University

This paper is a first report on an ongoing project aiming at building up a database of non-canonical argument marking in Lithuanian in contrast to other languages with relatively rich systems of morphological cases. The language with which we begin the comparison is Icelandic. The overarching aim consists not only in a unified inventorisation of relevant units, but in disclosing (i) regularities in the alternation of coding patterns and (ii) the factors underlying such variation. We will concentrate on case marking; this however implies agreement patterns as well, insofar as in these two languages only nominatival NPs trigger agreement on the finite verb (= predicate of the clause). We further concentrate on verbs with non-canonical marking of their highest-ranking argument (HRA); the notion of HRA is defined on the basis of the Actor-Undergoer Hierarchy as developed in Role & Reference Grammar (see 2.1). What we present here is not yet a comprehensive description of the whole body of data, but rather a problem paper which details some conceptual issues and highlights some prominent types of argument coding and their relation to lexical groups.

Published online: 16 May 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/vargreb.1.08wie
References

Sources

Jónsson, Jóhannes G.
1998  A list of Predicates that Take a Quirky Subject in Icelandic , Ms. University of Iceland.Google Scholar
Dabartinės Lietuvių Kalbos Žodynas DLKŽ
(2000)
Lietuvių kalbos tekstynas
[URL]
LKŽ – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas
20 vol., Vilnius
LKŽe – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas
electronic variant, [URL]
Sližienė, Nijolė
2004  Lietuvių kalbos veiksmažodžių junglumo žodynas vols. 1–3. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.Google Scholar
References
Anderson, Cori
Forthcoming. Non-canonical case patterns in Lithuanian. In Contemporary Approaches to Baltic Linguistics , Peter M. Arkadiev, Axel Holvoet, and Björn Wiemer (eds). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logo
Andrews, Avery
1976 The VP complement analysis in Modern Icelandic. North Eastern Linguistic Society 6: 1–21.Google Scholar
1982 The Representation of Case in Modern Icelandic. In The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations , Joan Bresnan (ed.), 427–503. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Apresjan, Jurij D.
1967  Ėksperimental’noe issledovanie semantiki russkogo glagola . Moskva: Nauka.Google Scholar
21995 [1974]  Leksičeskaja semantika (sinonimičeskie sredstva jazyka) . Moskva: Škola “Jazyki russkoj kul’tury”.Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna
2001  Case in Icelandic – A synchronic, diachronic and comparative approach . Lund University dissertation. [Published as Lundastudier i nordisk språkvetenskap A57, Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages 2001.]Google Scholar
2004 The semantics of the impersonal construction in Icelandic, German and Faroese: beyond thematic roles. In Focus on Germanic Typology . Werner Abraham (ed), 101–130. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 Construction-specific properties of syntactic subjects in Icelandic and German. Cognitive Linguistics 17(1), 19–106. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008  Productivity: Evidence from Case and Argument Structure in Icelandic . Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Butt, Miriam
2009 Modern approaches to case: an overview. In The Oxford Handbook of Case , Andrej Malchukov and Andrew Spencer (eds), 27–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cennamo, Michela, Eythórsson, Thórhallur
Barðdal, Jóhanna. Forthcoming. The Rise and Fall of Anticausative Constructions in Indo-European: The context of Latin and Germanic . Submitted to a thematic volume of Linguistics .
Croft, W.
1998 Event Structure in Argument Linking. In The Projection of Arguments. Lexical and Compositional Factors , Miriam Butt and Wilhelm Geuder (eds), 21–63. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen
1985  Case Grammar and Prototypes . Duisburg: Linguistic Agency, University of Duisburg, Series A 146.Google Scholar
Dixon, Richard M. W.
1991  A New Approach to English Grammar, on Semantic Principles . Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, Richard M.
W 1994  Ergativity . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dowty, Richard
1979  Word meaning and Montague Grammar . Dordrecht: Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1991 Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67: 547–619. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eythórsson, Thórhallur
2000a Dative vs. nominative: changes in quirky subjects in Icelandic. Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics 8: 27–44.Google Scholar
2000b Fall á fallanda fæti [Unstable case marking]. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 22: 185–204.Google Scholar
2002 Changes in subject case marking in Icelandic. In Syntactic Effects of Morphological Change , David Lightfoot (ed), 196–212. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
and Barðdal, Jóhanna 2005 Oblique subjects: A common Germanic inheritance! Language 81(4): 824–881. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Friðriksson, Finnur
2008  Language Change vs. Stability in Conservative Language Communities: A Case Study of Icelandic . PhD Dissertation, Gothenburg University.Google Scholar
Halldórsson, Halldór
1982 Um méranir: Drög að samtímalegri og sögulegri athugun [About dativizings: preliminaries to a synchronic and diachronic investigation]. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 4: 159–189.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin
1999 External Possession in a European areal perspective. In External possession Typological Studies in Language 39], Doris L. Payne and Immanuel Barshi (eds), 109–135. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 Non-canonical marking of core arguments in European languages. In Non-Canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects [Typological Studies in Language 46], Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Richard M. W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds.), 53–83. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins,. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 On S, A, P, T and R as comparative concepts for alignment typology. Linguistic Typology 15: 535–567. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J.
and Thompson, Sandra A. 1980 Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse. Language 56, 251–95. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jónsson, Jóhannes G.
1996  Clausal Architecture and Case in Icelandic . Amherst: University of Massachusetts dissertation.Google Scholar
2003 Not so quirky: on subject case in Icelandic. In New Perspectives on Case and Case Theory , Ellen Brandner and Heike Zinsmeister (eds), 127–164. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
and Eythórsson, Thórhallur 2005 Variation in subject case marking in Insular Scandinavian. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 28 (2): 223–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keenan, Edward
1976 Towards a universal definition of ‘subject’. In Subject and Topic , Charles N. Li (ed.), 303–333. New York etc.: Academic Press.Google Scholar
König, Ekkehard
2001 Internal and external possessors. In Language Typology and Language Universals , Martin Haspelmath et al.. (eds), vol. 2, 970–978. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lenartaitė, Kristina
2011  Argumentų raiškos alternavimas lietuvių kalboje [Alternations in Argument Realization in Lithuanian]. Unpublished PhD thesis, Vilnius.Google Scholar
Levin, Beth
1993  English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation . Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lyons, John
1977  Semantics (2 vols). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Malchukov, Andrej
and Narrog, Heiko 2009 Case polysemy. In The Oxford Handbook of Case , Andrej Malchukov and Andrew Spencer (eds), 518–534. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maling, Joan
2002 Það rignir þágufalli á Íslandi [Verbs with dative objects in Icelandic]. Íslenskt mál 24: 31–105.Google Scholar
Minger, David L.
2002  An Analysis of Grammatical Relations and Case Marking in Icelandic . MA Thesis, University of California, Davis.Google Scholar
Narrog, Heiko
2009 Varieties of instrumental. In The Oxford Handbook of Case , Andrej Malchukov and Andrew Spencer (eds), 593–600. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Onishi, Masayuki
2001 Introduction: Non-canonically marked subjects and objects: Parameters and properties. In Non-Canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects [Typological Studies in Language 46], Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Richard M. W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds), 1–51. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ottosson, Kjartan
2009  The Anticausative and Related Categories in the Old Germanic Languages . Ms. University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Payne, Doris
and Barshi, Immanuel 1999  External Possession [Typological Studies in Language 39]. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Primus, Beatrice
2009 Case, grammatical relations, and semantic roles. In The Oxford Handbook of Case , Andrej Malchukov and Andrew Spencer (eds), 261–275. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur
1983 Þágufallssýkin og fallakerfi í íslensku [Dative sickness and the case system in Icelandic]. Skíma 16: 3–6.Google Scholar
Saj, Sergej S.
2011 Nekanoničeskoe markirovanie aktantov mnogomestnyx predikatov: opyt kvantitativno-tipologičeskogo issledovanija. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana , vol. vii, part 3, Nikolaj N. Kazanskij (ed), 424–430. Sankt-Peterburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Forthcoming. Bivalent verb classes in the languages of Europe: A quantitative typological study. Submitted to Language Dynamics and Change .
Seefranz-Montag, Ariane von
1983  Syntaktische Funktionen und Wortstellungsveränderung. Die Entwicklung „Subjektloser” Konstruktionen in einigen Sprachen . Munich: Wilhelm Fink.Google Scholar
Seržant, Ilja. A.
2013a Rise of canonical objecthood with the Lithuanian verbs of pain. Baltic Linguistics 4: 187–211.Google Scholar
Seržant, Ilja A.
2013b The diachronic typology of non-canonical subjects and subject-like obliques. In The Diachronic Typology of Non-canonical Subjects [Studies in Language Companion Series 140] , Ilja A. Seržant and Leonid Kulikov (eds), 313–360. Amsterdam/Philadelphia. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Á
1989  Verbal Syntax and Case in Icelandic . Lund: Lund University dissertation. [Published: Reykjavík: Institute of Linguistics, University of Iceland 1992.]Google Scholar
Smith, Henry
1994 Dative Sickness in Germanic. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 12: 675–736. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michel B.
2001 Why quirky case really isn’t quirky (Or how to treat dative sickness in Icelandic). In Polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics , Hubert Cuyckens and Britta E. Zawada, (eds), 115–159. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Svavarsdóttir, Ásta
1982 ‘Þágufallssýki [‘Dative Sickness’]’. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði 4: 19–62.Google Scholar
Svenonius, Peter
2001 Case and event structure. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 26, 197–217.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur
1979  On Complementation in Icelandic . Harvard University dissertation, Cambridge, MA [Published: New York: Garland 1979.]Google Scholar
2007  The Syntax of Icelandic . Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valin, Robert D., Jr.
1991 Another look at Icelandic case marking and grammatical relations. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9: 145–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D., Jr.
2005  Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface . Cambridge etc.: Cambridge U.P. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D., Jr. & LaPolla, Randy
1997  Syntax. Structure, meaning and function . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vendler, Zenon
1967 [1957]  Linguistics in Philosophy . Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Viberg, Åke.
1984 The verbs of perception: A typological study. Explanations for Language Universals , Brian Butterworth, Bernard Comrie, and Östen Dahl (eds), 123–162. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiemer, Björn
2013 Značimost’ sposobov modifikacii glagol’nyx osnov dlja ocenki areal’noj differenciacii baltijskix jazykov (po sravneniju s rjadom slavjanskix mikrojazykov). In Tipologija slavjanskix, baltijskix i balkanskix jazykov (v svete jazykovyx kontaktov) , Vjačeslav Vs. Ivanov and & Petr M. Arkad’ev (eds), 220–246. Sankt-Peterburg: Aletejja.Google Scholar
Zaenen, Annie, Maling, Joan
and Thráinsson, Höskuldur 1985 Case and grammatical functions: The Icelandic passive. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3: 441–483. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Holvoet, Axel
2016. Argument marking in Baltic and Slavonic pain-verb constructions. In Argument Realization in Baltic [Valency, Argument Realization and Grammatical Relations in Baltic, 3], ► pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Malchukov, Andrej L.
2018. Chapter 10. Forty years in the search of a/the subject. In Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects [Studies in Language Companion Series, 200], ► pp. 241 ff. DOI logo
Seržant, Ilja A.
2016. The nominative case in Baltic in a typological perspective. In Argument Realization in Baltic [Valency, Argument Realization and Grammatical Relations in Baltic, 3], ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo
Wiemer, Björn & Vaiva Žeimantienė
2016. Contexts for the choice of genitive vs. instrumental in contemporary Lithuanian. In Argument Realization in Baltic [Valency, Argument Realization and Grammatical Relations in Baltic, 3], ► pp. 259 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.