Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume I: Clause Structure, Second edition
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Lgg Typology, Synt Description v. I - Clause structure
Avery D. Andrews
the lexicon, since a transitive verb will simply be specified as taking a subject and an object, rather than a subject and one of two types of object. So one can say that p is consistently realized by a grammatical relation, although the evidence for this is not overwhelming. The second problem is more serious, which is that of distinguishing ps from potential cases of non-ps. These cases arise in at least two ways. First, there can be ‘non-canonical’ objects that share some but not all of the properties of p . Second, there can be ‘multiple’ objects where there is more than one np that shows some of the characteristic properties of p. The first kind of case often arises in languages where grammatical rela- tions are coded by np-marking. In such languages, it often happens that a large number of two-argument verbs take non-subject arguments in some case not normally found on p. In Warlpiri, we have noted verbs taking non-subject argu- ments in the dative and locative cases (examples (48) and (42), respectively). Simpson (1991:311–17) argues that these dative arguments should be consid- ered as objects because they can be cross-referenced like ordinary objects, and serve as controllers for kurra nonfinite clauses, as illustrated in (55c). Another kind of example is afforded by German. Here ps are expressed as accusative nps, illustrated in (79a). But there are a fair number of two-argument verbs that take their second (non-subject) argument in the dative, illustrated in (b): (79) a. Sie sah ihn she(nom) saw him(acc) ‘She saw him’ b. Sie hilfte ihm she(nom) helped him(dat) ‘She helped him’. In German, there don’t seem to be any phenomena which clearly unite the accusative of (a) and the dative of (b) as bearers of a single grammatical relation, other than that of appearing as a bare np, without a preposition. For example, both kinds of verbs can passivize, but an accusative object becomes nominative and obligatorily occupies the subject position, while the dative retains its dative case, and remains in the vp: (80) a. Er wurde gesehen he(nom) became seen ‘He was seen’ b. *Es wurde ihn/er gesehen It(nom) became him(acc/nom) seen ‘He was seen’ The major functions of the noun phrase 183 c. *Er wurde geholfen He(nom) became helped ‘He was helped’ d. Es wurde ihm geholfen It(nom) became him(dat) helped ‘He was helped’ Es ‘it’ in (d) is functioning as a ‘filler’ in sentence-initial position in cases where there is no subject; it is impossible in (b) because the passive verb form gesehen in this example has the nominative er ‘he’ as its subject. It is possible to put the dative into sentence-initial position (like almost any other constituent of the clause), with consequent disappearance of es, but these datives pass none of the relevant tests for subjecthood. For example they can’t be ellipsed as understood subjects of complements: (81) a. Uns wurde von der Polizei geholfen we(dat) became by the police helped ‘We were helped by the police’ b. *Wir m¨ochten von der Polizei geholfen werden We(nom) want by the police helped to.become ‘We want to be helped by the police’ J´onsson (1996:127–9) By contrast, in Icelandic, when such postverbal dative putative objects are passivized, they obligatorily occupy subject position and pass tests for subjecthood: (82) a. eir h´alpu ð u honum they helped him(dat) ‘They helped him’ b. Honum var hj´alpa ð him(dat) was helped ‘He was helped’ c. Hann vonast til a ð ver ð a hj´alpa ð he hopes toward to be helped ‘He hopes to be helped’ So in Icelandic we have a reason for grouping the canonically marked (accusative) objects with the non-canonically marked (dative) putative objects, but in German we don’t appear to. It may thus require substantial investigation to work out which nps are direct objects in languages with rich case-marking systems. |
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